*- / 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


THE  SHORT  LINE  WAR. 

BY 
H.  K.  WEBSTER  AND  SAMUEL  MERWIN. 


It  is  only  one  novel  in  twenty  that  is  en- 
grossing enough  to  insist  upon  a  reading, 
making  the  mood  for  its  own  enjoyment. 
It  is  hardly  one  in  twenty  which  is  success- 
ful in  interpreting  to  the  people  of  one  class 
or  occupation  the  struggles  and  sympathies 
of  those  without  their  social  or  business 
circles.  That  "  The  Short  Line  War  " 
should  do  both,  makes  it  very  exceptional 
indeed.  —  Chicago  Evening  Post. 

It  is  one  of  those  tales  of  vigorous  char- 
acter and  action  which  touch  a  responsive 
chord  in  nearly  every  class  of  readers.  The 
story  is  finely  written.  —  Toledo  Blade. 


iGmo.     Cloth.     $1.50. 


THE    BANKER    AND 
THE   BEAR 

The  Story  of  a  Corner  in  Lard 


BY 

HENRY   KITCHELL  WEBSTER 


Nefo  ff  orfe 
THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
IQOO 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1900, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Nortoooto  $«BB 

J.  8.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mali.  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    BEGINNINGS i 

II.    DICK  HASELRIDGE 25 

III.  THE  WILL         .        .        ....        .38 

IV.  A  VICTORY        .        .        .       •„       .       .        .59 
V.    OLD  FRIENDS 74 

VI.  LARD          .        .        .        .     .'."      .       .        .      85 

VII.    THE  SPY :-'•.       .103 

VIII.    A  BATTLE '.        .     118 

IX.    DEEPER  STILL 138 

X.  NEVER  DID  RUN  SMOOTH  .        .        .        .        .     151 

XI.    COMMON  HONESTY 166 

XII.    CONSEQUENCES 183 

XIII.  How  THE  BEAR  SPENT  SUNDAY       .        .        .    200 

XIV.  GOOD  INTENTIONS      .        .        .       t       .        .212 
XV.  THE  STARTING  OF  AN  AVALANCHE   .        .        .    230 

XVI.     HARRIET .        .    247 

XVII.  WEDNESDAY  MORNING      .        .    .   .        .        .    267 

XVIII.  How  THEY  BROKE  THE  RUN           '.        .        .     283 

XIX.  THE  FOURTH  DAY     .        .        .        .        .        .301 

XX.    ASSAULT  AND  BATTERY 316 

XXI.    A  CORNER 334 

v 


THE  BANKER  AND  THE  BEAR 


CHAPTER    I 

BEGINNINGS 

FOR  more  than  forty  years  Bagsbury  and 
Company  was  old  John  Bagsbury  himself ; 
merely  another  expression  of  his  stiff,  cautious 
personality.  Like  him  it  had  been  old  from 
infancy ;  you  could  as  easily  imagine  that  he 
had  once  been  something  of  a  dandy,  had  worn 
a  stiff  collar  and  a  well-brushed  hat,  as  that  its 
dusty  black-walnut  furniture  had  ever  smelled 
of  varnish.  And,  conversely,  though  he  had  a 
family,  a  religion  to  whose  requirements  he  was 
punctiliously  attentive,  and  a  really  fine  library, 
the  bank  represented  about  all  there  was  of  old 
John  Bagsbury. 

Beside  a  son,  John,  he  had  a  daughter,  born 
several  years  earlier,  whom  they  christened 
Martha.  She  grew  into  a  capricious,  pretty 
girl,  whom  her  father  did  not  try  to  under- 


2  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

stand,  particularly  as  he  thought  she  never 
could  be  of  the  smallest  importance  to  Bags- 
bury  and  Company.  When,  before  she  was 
twenty,  in  utter  disregard  of  her  father's 
forcibly  expressed  objection,  she  married  Victor 
Haselridge,  she  dropped  forever  out  of  the  old 
man's  life. 

The  boy,  John,  was  too  young  to  understand 
when  this  happened,  and  as  his  mother  died 
soon  after,  he  grew  almost  to  forget  that  he 
had  ever  had  a  sister.  He  was  very  different : 
serious  and,  on  the  surface  at  least,  placid.  He 
had  the  old  man's  lumpy  head  and  his  thin- 
lidded  eyes,  though  his  mouth  was,  like  his 
mother's,  generous.  His  father  had  high  hopes 
that  he  might,  in  course  of  years,  grow  to  be 
worthy  of  Bagsbury  and  Company's  Savings 
Bank.  That  was  the  boy's  hope,  too ;  when  he 
was  fifteen  he  asked  to  be  taken  from  school 
and  put  to  work,  and  his  father,  with  ill-con- 
cealed delight,  consented.  Through  the  next 
five  years  the  old  man's  hopes  ran  higher  than 
ever,  for  John  showed  that  he  knew  how  to 
work,  and  slowly  —  the  tenure  of  office  was 
long  at  Bagsbury's  —  he  climbed  the  first  few 
rounds  of  the  ladder. 


Beginnings  3 

But  trouble  was  brewing  all  the  while,  though 
the  father  was  too  blind  to  see.  It  began  the 
day  when  the  lad  first  set  foot  in  a  bank  other 
than  his  father's.  The  brightness,  the  bustle, 
the  alert  air  that  characterized  every  one  about 
it,  brought  home  to  him  a  sharp,  disappointing 
surprise.  Try  as  he  might,  he  could  not  bring 
back  the  old  feeling  of  pride  in  Bagsbury  and 
Company,  and  he  felt  the  difference  the  more 
keenly  as  he  grew  to  understand  where  it  lay. 
But  he  liked  work,  and  with  a  boy's  healthy 
curiosity  he  pried  and  puzzled  and  sought  to 
comprehend  everything,  though  his  father  out  of 
a  notion  of  discipline,  and  his  fellow-employees 
for  a  less  unselfish  reason,  discouraged  his  in- 
quiries. In  one  way  and  another  he  made 
several  acquaintances  among  the  fellows  of 
his  own  age  who  worked  in  the  other  banks, 
and  from  finding  something  to  smile  at  in  his 
queer,  old-mannish  way  they  came  to  like  him. 
He  had  his  mother's  adaptability,  and  he  sur- 
prised them  by  turning  out  to  be  really  good 
company. 

His  deep-seated  loyalty  to  his  father  and  to 
his  father's  bank  made  him  fight  down  the 
feeling  of  bitterness  and  contempt  which, 


4  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

nevertheless,  grew  stronger  month  by  month. 
Everybody  in  that  gray  old  vault  of  a  bank 
continued  to  treat  him  as  a  child;  there  was 
no  change  anywhere,  save  that  the  mould  of 
respectable  conservatism  lay  thicker  on  old 
John  Bagsbury,  and  his  caution  was  growing 
into  a  mania. 

One  morning  —  John  was  nearing  his  twen- 
tieth birthday  then  —  he  was  sent  on  a  small 
matter  of  business  to  the  Atlantic  National 
Bank.  He  had  despatched  it  and  was  passing 
out  when  Dawson,  the  president,  surprised  him 
by  calling  to  him  from  the  door  of  the  private 
office.  As  John  obeyed  the  summons  and 
entered  the  office,  the  president  motioned  to 
another  man  who  was  leaning  against  the 
desk.  "This  is  young  John  Bagsbury,"  he 
said,  "  Mr.  Sponley." 

John  had  no  time  to  be  puzzled,  for  Sponley 
straightened  up  and  shook  hands  with  him. 

Whatever  you  might  think  of  Melville  Spon- 
ley, he  compelled  you  to  think  something;  he 
could  not  be  ignored.  He  was  at  this  time 
barely  thirty,  but  already  he  bore  about  him 
the  prophecy  that,  in  some  sphere  or  other,  he 
was  destined  to  wield  an  unusual  influence.  He 


Beginnings  5 

was  of  about  middle  height,  though  his  enor- 
mous girth  made  him  look  shorter,  his  skin 
was  swarthy,  his  thick  neck  bulged  out  above 
his  collar,  and  his  eyelids  were  puffy.  But  his 
glance  was  as  swift  and  purposeful  as  a  fencer's 
thrust,  and  a  great  dome  of  a  forehead  towered 
above  his  black  brows. 

Keenly,  deliberately,  he  looked  straight  into 
John  Bagsbury,  and  in  the  look  John  felt  him- 
self treated  as  a  man.  They  exchanged  only 
the  commonplaces  of  greeting,  and  then,  as  there 
seemed  to  be  nothing  further  to  say,  John 
took  his  leave. 

"  Why  did  you  ask  me  to  call  him  in  here  ? " 
demanded  the  president. 

"  Curiosity,"  said  Sponley.  "  I  wanted  to  see 
if  he  was  going  to  be  like  his  father." 

"  He's  better  stuff,"  said  Dawson,  emphati- 
cally ;  "  a  sight  better  stuff." 

Next  day,  a  little  after  noon,  John  met  Spon- 
ley on  the  street.  Sponley  nodded  cordially  as 
they  passed,  then  turned  and  spoke :  — 

"  Oh,  Bagsbury,  were  you  thinking  of  getting 
something  to  eat  ?  If  you  were,  you'd  better 
come  along  and  have  a  little  lunch  with  me." 

John  might  have  felt  somewhat  ill  at  ease 


6  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

had  his  new  acquaintance  given  him  any  oppor- 
tunity ;  but  Sponley  took  on  himself  the  whole 
responsibility  for  the  conversation,  and  John 
forgot  everything  else  listening  to  the  talk, 
which  was  principally  in  praise  of  the  banking 
business. 

"  I  suppose  you  are  wondering  why  I  don't 
go  into  it  myself,  but  I'm  not  cut  out  for  it.  I 
was  born  to  be  a  speculator.  That  has  a  strange 
sound  to  your  ears,  no  doubt,  but  I  mean  to  get 
rich  at  it. 

"  Now  a  banker  has  to  be  a  sort  of  commer- 
cial father  confessor  to  all  his  customers.  That 
wouldn't  be  in  my  line  at  all ;  but  I  envy  the 
man  who  has  the  genius  and  the  opportunity 
for  it  that  I  fancy  you  have." 

An  habitually  reserved  man,  when  once  the 
barrier  is  broken  down,  will  reveal  anything. 
Before  John  was  aware  of  it,  he  had  yielded  to 
the  charm  of  being  completely  understood,  and 
was  telling  Sponley  the  story  of  his  life  at  the 
bank.  Sponley  said  nothing,  but  eyed  the  ash 
of  his  cigar  until  he" was  sure  that  John  had  told 
it  all.  Then  he  spoke  :  — 

"  Under  an  aggressive  management  your  bank 
could  be  one  of  the  three  greatest  in  the  city  in 


Beginnings  f 

two  years.  It's  immensely  rich,  and  it  has  a 
tremendous  credit.  As  you  say,  with  things  as 
they  are,  it's  hopeless ;  but  then,  some  day  you'll 
get  control  of  it,  I  suppose." 

There  was  a  moment  of  silence  while  Sponley 
relighted  his  cigar. 

"  Have  you  thought  of  making  a  change  ? 
I  mean,  of  getting  a  better  training  by  work- 
ing up  through  some  other  bank  ? " 

"  That's  out  of  the  question,"  said  John. 

"  I  can  understand  your  feeling  that  way 
about  it,"  said  the  other.  "  I've  detained  you 
a  long  time.  I'd  ask  you  to  come  and  see  us, 
but  my  wife  and  I  are  going  abroad  next  week, 
and  shan't  be  back  till  spring;  but  we'll  surely 
see  you  then.  Good-by  and  good  luck." 

John  went  back  to  the  bank  and  listened  with 
an  indifference  he  had  not  known  before  to 
the  remonstrance  of  his  immediate  superior, 
who  spoke  satirically  about  the  length  of  his 
lunch  hour,  and  carped  at  his  way  of  cross- 
ing his  t's. 

Sponley  and  his  wife  lingered  at  the  table 
that  evening,  discussing  plans  for  their  jour- 
ney. Harriet  Sponley  was  younger  than  her 
husband,  but  she  had  not  his  nerves,  and  there 


8  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

were  lines  in  her  face  which  time  had  not  yet 
written  in  his. 

"  I'm  glad  you're  to  have  the  rest,"  he  said, 
looking  intently  at  her ;  "  you  need  it." 

"  No  more  than  you,"  she  smilingly  pro- 
tested. "  You  didn't  come  home  to  lunch." 

"  N-no."  A  smile  broke  over  his  heavy  face. 
"  I  was  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits.  I 
planted  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  will 
grow  into  a  great  tree.  Some  time  we  may 
be  glad  to  roost  therein." 

"  Riddles  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Please  give  me 
the  key  to  this  one.  I  don't  feel  like  guessing." 

"  If  you  will  have  it,  I've  been  putting  a 
cyclone  cellar  in  a  bank." 

"Whose  bank?" 

"  Bagsbury's,"  he  answered,  smiling  more 
broadly. 

"  Bagsbury's,"  she  repeated,  in  an  injured 
tone,  "  I  really  want  to  know.  Please  tell  me." 

"  Did  you  ever  hear,"  he  asked,  as  they  left 
the  dining-room  and  entered  the  library,  "of 
young  John  Bagsbury  ?  " 

"  No,  do  you  know  him  ?  " 

He  dropped  into  an  easy-chair.  "  Met  him 
yesterday." 


Beginnings  9 

"  It  won't  do  any  good,  "  she  said ;  "  some- 
body has  probably  come  round  already  and 
warned  him  that  you're  a  dangerous  man,  or  a 
plunger,  or  something  like  that" 

"  Yes,  I  warned  him  to-day  myself." 

She  laughed  and  moved  away  toward  the 
piano.  As  she  passed  behind  his  chair,  she 
patted  his  head  approvingly. 

The  next  few  months  went  dismally  with 
John.  At  the  bank,  or  away  from  it,  there  was 
little  change  in  the  stiff  routine  of  his  life ; 
his  few  glimpses  of  the  outside  world,  and  par- 
ticularly the  memory  of  that  hour  with  Sponley, 
made  it  harder  to  endure.  His  discontent 
steadily  sank  deeper  and  became  a  fact  more 
inevitably  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  before  the 
winter  was  over  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
could  not  give  up  his  life  to  the  course  his 
father  had  marked  out  for  him  ;  but  he  dreaded 
the  idea  of  a  change,  and  in  the  absence  of 
a  definite  opening  for  him  elsewhere  he  let 
events  take  their  own  course.  Often  he  found 
himself  wondering  whether  the  speculator  had 
forgotten  all  about  his  suggestion. 

But  Sponley  never  forgot  anything,  though 
he  often  waited  longer  than  most  men  are  will- 


IO 

ing  to.  He  and  Harriet  had  not  been  back  in 
town  a  week  before  they  asked  John  to  dine 
with  them;  "Just  ourselves,"  the  note  said. 

An  invitation  to  dinner  was  not  the  terrible 
thing  to  John  that  it  would  have  been  a  year 
before,  but  as  the  hour  drew  near  he  looked 
forward  to  it  with  mingled  pleasure  and  dread. 
He  forgot  it  all  the  moment  he  was  fairly  inside 
the  Sponley  big  library.  He  had  never  seen 
such  a  room ;  it  had  a  low  ceiling,  it  was  red 
and  warm  and  comfortable,  and  there  was  a 
homely  charm  about  the  informal  arrangement 
of  the  furniture.  John  did  not  see  it  all:  he 
felt  it,  took  it  in  with  the  first  breath  of  the 
tobacco-savored  air,  while  the  speculator  was 
introducing  him  to  Mrs.  Sponley,  and  then  to 
some  one  else  who  stood  just  behind  her,  a  fair- 
haired  girl  in  a  black  gown. 

"  Miss  Blair  is  one  of  the  family,"  said  Spon- 
ley; "a  sort  of  honorary  little  sister  of  Mrs. 
Sponley's." 

"  She's  really  not  much  of  a  relation,"  added 
Harriet,  "  but  she's  the  only  one  of  any  sort  that 
I  possess,  so  I  have  to  make  the  most  of  her." 

The  next  hours  were  the  happiest  John  had 
ever  known.  It  was  all  so  new  to  him,  —  this 


Beginnings  1 1 

easy,  irresponsible  way  of  taking  the  world,  this 
making  a  luxury  of  conversation  instead  of  the 
strict,  uncomfortable  necessity  he  had  always 
thought  it.  It  was  pleasant  fooling;  not  espe- 
cially clever,  easy  to  make  and  to  hear  and  to  for- 
get, and  so  skilfully  did  the  Sponleys  do  it  that 
John  never  realized  they  were  doing  it  at  all. 

When  the  ladies  rose  to  leave  the  table, 
Sponley  detained  John.  "  I  want  to  talk  a  little 
business  with  you,  if  you'll  let  me. 

"  I  had  a  talk  with  Dawson  yesterday,"  he 
continued  when  they  were  alone.  "  Dawson, 
you  know,  practically  owns  one  or  two  country 
banks,  besides  his  large  interest  in  the  Atlantic 
National,  and  it  takes  a  lot  of  men  to  run  his 
business.  Dawson  told  me  that  none  of  the 
youngsters  at  the  Atlantic  was  worth  much. 
He  wants  a  man  who's  capable  of  handling 
some  of  that  country  business.  Now,  I  remem- 
ber you  said  last  fall  that  you  didn't  care  to  go 
into  anything  like  that ;  but  I  had  an  idea  that 
you  might  think  differently  now,  so  I  spoke  of 
you  to  Dawson  and  he  wants  you.  It  looks  to 
me  like  rather  a  good  opening." 

John  did  not  speak  for  half  a  minute.  Then 
he  said :  — 


12  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  I'll  take  it     Thank  you." 

"  I'm  glad  you  decided  that  way,"  said  Spon- 
ley.  "  Dawson  and  I  lunch  together  to-morrow 
at  one.  You'd  better  join  us,  and  then  you  and 
he  can  talk  over  details.  Come,  Alice  and 
Harriet  are  waiting  for  us.  We'll  have  some 
music." 

When  at  last  it  occurred  to  John  that  it  was 
time  to  go  home,  they  urged  him  so  heartily  to 
stay  a  little  longer  that  without  another  thought 
he  forgave  himself  for  having  forgotten  to  go 
earlier. 

Just  before  noon  next  day,  John  left  his  desk 
and  walked  into  his  father's  office.  Old  Mr. 
Bagsbury  looked  up  to  see  who  his  visitor  was, 
then  turned  back  to  his  writing.  After  a  minute, 
however,  he  laid  down  his  pen  and  waited  for 
his  son  to  speak. 

And  to  his  great  surprise  John  found  that  a 
difficult  thing  to  do.  When  he  did  begin,  an- 
other word  was  on  his  lips  than  the  one  he 
had  expected  to  use. 

"Father  —  "  he  said.  The  old  man's  brows 
contracted,  and  John  knew  he  had  made  a 
mistake.  In  his  desire  that  John  should  be  on 
the  same  terms  as  the  other  clerks,  the  father 


Beginnings  1 3 

had  barred  that  form  of  address  in  banking 
hours. 

"  Mr.  Bagsbury,"  John  began  again,  and  now 
the  words  came  easily,  "I  was  offered  another 
position  last  night.  It's  a  better  one  than  I 
hold  here,  and  I  think  it  will  be  to  my  advantage 
to  take  it." 

Mr.  Bagsbury's  hard,  thin  old  face  expressed 
nothing,  even  of  surprise.  He  sat  quite  still 
for  a  moment,  then  he  clasped  his  hands 
tightly  under  the  desk,  for  they  were  quivering. 

"  You  wish  to  take  this  position  at  once  ? " 

"  I  haven't  arranged  that.  I  waited  till  I 
could  speak  to  you  about  it.  I  don't  want  to 
inconvenience  you." 

"  You  can  go  at  once  if  you  choose.  We  can 
arrange  for  your  work." 

"Very  well,  sir." 

As  his  father  bowed  assent,  John  turned  to 
leave  the  office.  But  at  the  door  he  stopped 
and  looked  back.  Mr.  Bagsbury  had  not  moved, 
save  that  his  head,  so  stiffly  erect  during  the  in- 
terview, was  bowed  over  the  desk.  From  where 
he  stood  John  could  not  see  his  face.  Acting 
on  an  impulse  he  did  not  understand,  John  re- 
traced his  steps  and  stood  at  the  old  man's  side. 


14 

"  Father,"  he  said,  "  I  may  have  been  incon- 
siderate of  your  feelings  in  this  matter.  If 
there's  anything  personal  about  it,  that  is,  if  it's 
worth  any  more  to  you  to  have  me  here  than  just 
my  —  my  commercial  value;  I'll  be  glad  to 
stay." 

"  Not  at  all,"  returned  the  father ;  "  our  rela- 
tion here  in  the  bank  is  a  purely  commercial  one. 
I  cannot  offer  you  a  better  position  because  you 
are  not  worth  it  to  me.  But  if  some  one  else 
has  offered  you  a  better  one,  you  are  right  to 
take  it,  quite  right." 

And  John,  much  relieved,  though,  be  it  said, 
feeling  rather  foolish  over  that  incomprehensible 
impulse  of  his,  again  turned  to  the  door.  He 
went  back  to  his  desk  and  finished  his  morning's 
work.  Then  he  slipped  on  his  overcoat,  but 
before  going  out  he  paused  to  look  about  the 
big,  dreary  droning  room. 

"  I'll  come  back  here  some  day,"  he  thought, 
"and  then  —  " 

Old  Mr.  Bagsbury  never  had  but  one  child; 
that  was  Bagsbury  and  Company's  Savings 
Bank.  John  was  not,  in  his  mind,  the  heir  to  it, 
but  the  one  who  should  be  its  guardian  after  he 
was  gone ;  his  son  was  no  more  to  him  than 


Beginnings  1 5 

that.  But  that  was  everything ;  and  so  the  old 
man  sat  with  bowed  head  and  clasped  hands, 
wondering  dully  how  the  bank  would  live  when 
he  was  taken  away  from  it. 

John  paid  his  dinner  call  promptly,  though 
Mark  Tapley  would  have  said  there  was  no 
great  credit  in  that;  it  could  hardly  be  termed  a 
call  either,  for  it  lasted  from  eight  till  eleven. 
But  what,  after  all,  did  the  hours  matter  so  long 
as  they  passed  quickly  ?  And  then  a  few  nights 
later  they  went  together  to  the  play,  and  a  little 
after  that  was  a  long  Sunday  afternoon  which 
ended  with  their  compelling  John  to  stay  to  tea. 

His  time  was  fully  occupied,  for  he  found  a 
day's  work  at  the  Atlantic  very  different  from 
anything  he  had  experienced  under  the  stately 
regime  of  Bagsbury  and  Company.  Dawson 
paid  for  every  ounce  there  was  in  a  man,  and 
he  used  it.  "  They've  piled  it  on  him  pretty 
thick,"  the  cashier  told  the  president  after  a 
month  or  two ;  "  but  he  carries  it  without  a 
stagger.  If  he  can  keep  up  this  pace,  he's 
a  gold  mine." 

He  did  keep  the  pace,  though  it  left  him  few 
free  evenings.  Those  he  had  were  spent, 
nearly  all  of  them,  with  the  Sponleys.  The  fair- 


1 6  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

haired  girl  seemed  to  John,  each  time  he  saw 
her,  sweeter  and  more  adorable  than  she  had 
ever  been  before,  and  he  saw  her  often  enough 
to  make  the  progression  a  rapid  one.  The  hos- 
pitality of  the  Sponleys  never  flagged.  The 
number  of  things  they  thought  of  that  "  it  would 
be  larks  to  do,"  was  legion;  and  when  there 
was  no  lark,  there  was  always  the  long  evening 
in  the  big  firelit  room,  when  Harriet  played  the 
piano,  and  Sponley  put  his  feet  on  the  fender 
and  smoked  cigars,  and  there  was  nothing  to 
prohibit  a  boy  and  a  girl  from  sitting  close  to- 
gether on  the  wide  sofa  and  looking  over  port- 
folios of  steel  engravings  from  famous  paintings 
—  and  talking  of  nothing  in  particular,  or  at 
least  not  of  the  steel  engravings. 

At  last  one  Sunday  afternoon  in  early  spring, 
after  months  of  suspense  that  seemed  years 
to  John,  Alice  consented  to  marry  him,  and 
John  was  so  happy  that  he  did  not  blush  or 
stammer,  as  they  had  been  sure  he  would, 
when  he  told  the  Sponleys  about  it.  There 
never  was  such  an  illumination  as  the  street 
lamps  made  that  evening  when  John  walked 
back  to  his  father's  house ;  and  something  in 
his  big  dismal  room,  the  single  faint-hearted 


Beginnings  17 

gas-jet,  perhaps,  threw  a  rosy  glow  even  over 
that. 

When  he  had  left  Bagsbury  and  Company 
to  go  to  work  for  Dawson,  there  had  occurred 
no  change  in  John's  personal  relation  with  his 
father.  That  relation  had  never  amounted  to 
much,  but  they  continued  to  live  on  not  un- 
friendly terms.  Quite  unconscious  that  he 
was  misusing  the  word,  John  would  have  told 
you  that  he  lived  at  home.  Once  on  a  time, 
when  Martha  was  a  baby,  before  the  loneli- 
ness of  his  mother's  life  had  made  her  old, 
before  the  commercial  crust  had  grown  so  thick 
over  the  spark  of  humanity  that  lurked  some- 
where in  old  John  Bagsbury,  the  old  house 
may  have  been  a  home;  but  John  had  never 
known  it  as  anything  but  a  place  where  one 
might  sleep  and  have  his  breakfast  and  his 
dinner  without  paying  for  them.  When  he 
and  his  father  met,  there  was  generally  some 
short-lived  attempt  at  conversation,  consisting 
in  a  sort  of  set  form  like  the  responses  in  the 
prayer-book.  But  one  night,  as  soon  as  they 
were  seated,  John  spoke  what  was  on  his  mind, 
without  waiting  for  the  wonted  exchange  of 

courtesies, 
c 


1 8  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Father,"  he  said,  "  I'm  planning  to  be  mar- 
ried in  a  few  months." 

"  If  your  means  are  sufficient,"  the  old  man 
answered,  "  and  if  you  have  chosen  wisely,  as 
I  make  no  doubt  you  have,  why  that  is  very 
well,  very  well." 

A  little  later  the  father  asked  abruptly,  — 

"  Are  you  planning  to  live  here  ? " 

Perhaps,  in  the  silent  moments  just  past, 
there  had  quickened  in  his  mind  a  mouldy  old 
memory  of  a  girlish  face,  and  then  of  a  baby's 
wailing,  a  memory  that  brought  a  momentary 
glow  into  the  ashes  of  his  soul,  and  a  hope, 
gone  in  the  flicker  of  an  eyelash,  that  a  child 
might  again  play  round  his  knees.  But  when 
John's  answer  came,  and  it  came  quickly,  the 
father  was  relieved  to  hear  him  say,  — 

"  Oh,  no,  sir,  we're  going  to  look  up  a  place 
of  our  own." 

They  were  to  be  married  next  April,  and 
though  that  time  seemed  far  away  to  John,  — 
thanks  to  the  economy  of  the  Atlantic  National, 
and  to  the  hours  he  had  with  Alice,  which 
merged  one  into  the  other,  forming  in  his 
memory  a  beatific  haze,  —  it  passed  quickly 
enough.  The  only  thing  that  troubled  John 


Beginnings  19 

was  Alice's  total  ignorance  of  banking  and 
her  indifference  to  matters  of  business  gener- 
ally. One  evening,  in  Harriet's  presence,  he 
offered,  half  jestingly,  to  teach  her  how  to 
manage  a  bank;  but  the  older  woman  turned 
the  conversation  to  something  else,  and  he  did 
not  think  of  it  again  for  a  long  time. 

When  John  had  gone  that  evening,  and 
Alice  was  making  ready  for  bed,  her  door 
opened  unceremoniously  and  Harriet  came  in. 
She  was  so  pale  that  Alice  cried  out  to  know 
what  was  the  matter. 

"Nothing;  I'm  tired,  that's  all.  It's  been 
a  hard  day  for  Melville,  and  that  always  leaves 
me  a  wreck.  No,  I've  been  waiting  for  John 
to  go  because  I  want  to  have  a  talk  with  you. 
I  feel  like  it  to-night,  and  I  may  not  again." 

She  walked  across  the  room  and  fumbled 
nervously  the  scattered  articles  on  the  dressing- 
table.  Her  words,  and  the  action  which  fol- 
lowed them,  were  so  unlike  Harriet  that  Alice 
stared  at  her  wonderingly.  At  last  Harriet 
turned  and  faced  her,  leaning  back  against 
the  table,  her  hands  clutching  the  ledge  of  it 
tightly. 

"I'm   going  to  give   you  some  advice,"  she 


2O  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

said ;  "  I  don't  suppose  you'll  like  it,  either. 
You  didn't  like  my  interrupting  John  to-night 
when  he  was  going  to  explain  about  banking. 
But,  Alice,  dear,"  the  voice  softened  as  she 
spoke,  and  her  attitude  relaxed  a  little,  "you 
don't  want  to  know  about  such  things;  truly, 
you  don't !  If  you're  going  to  be  happy  with 
John,  you  mustn't  know  anything  about  his 
business  —  about  what  he  does  in  the  day- 
time." 

"What  a  way  to  talk  —  for  you,  too,  of  all 
people !  You're  happy,  aren't  you  ? " 

"  Perhaps  I'm  different,"  said  Harriet,  slowly ; 
"but  I  know  what  I'm  talking  about.  I 
shouldn't  be  saying  these  things  to  you,  if  I 
didn't.  How  will  you  like  having  John  come 
home  and  tell  you  all  about  some  tight  place 
he's  in  that  he  doesn't  know  how  he's  going 
to  get  out  of,  and  then  waiting  all  the  next 
day  and  wondering  how  it's  coming  out,  and 
not  being  able  to  do  anything  but  worry?" 

"But  I  thought  the  banking  business  was 
perfectly  safe,"  said  Alice,  vaguely  alarmed, 
but  still  more  puzzled. 

"  Safe  !  "  echoed  Harriet ;  "  any  business  is 
safe  if  a  man  is  willing  to  wall  himself  up  in 


Beginnings  2 1 

a  corner  and  just  stay,  and  not  want  to  do 
anything  or  get  anywhere.  But  if  a  man  is 
ambitious,  like  John  or  Melville,  and  means  to 
get  up  to  the  top,  why  it's  just  one  long  fight 
for  him  whatever  business  he  goes  into." 

She  was  not  looking  at  Alice,  nor,  indeed, 
speaking  to  her,  but  seemed  rather  to  be  think- 
ing aloud. 

"  That  is  the  one  great  purpose  in  John's  life," 
she  said.  "  His  father's  bank  is  the  only  thing 
that  really  counts.  Everything  else  is  only  inci- 
dental to  that." 

She  turned  about  again,  and  her  hands  re- 
sumed their  purposeless  play  over  the  table. 
"  He'll  succeed,  too.  He  isn't  afraid  of  any- 
thing ;  and  he  won't  lose  his  nerve ;  he  can 
stand  the  strain.  But  you  can't,  and  if  you 
try,  your  face  will  get  wrinkled,"  she  was  star- 
ing into  the  mirror  that  hung  above  the  table, 
"  and  your  nerves  will  fly  to  pieces,  and  you'll 
just  worry  your  heart  out." 

She  was  interrupted  by  a  movement  behind 
her.  Alice  had  thrown  herself  upon  the  bed, 
sobbing  like  a  frightened  child. 

"You're  very  unkind  and  —  cruel  —  to  tell 
me  —  that  John's  business  was  dangerous  — 


22  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

and  that  he  didn't  care  for  anything  —  even 
me  —  and  that  I'd  get  wrinkled  —  " 

Harriet  sat  down  beside  her  on  the  bed. 
Her  manner  had  changed  instantly  when  she 
had  seen  the  effect  of  her  words.  When  she 
spoke,  her  voice  was  very  gentle. 

"  Forgive  me,  dear.  I  spoke  very  foolishly  ; 
because  I  was  tired,  I  suppose.  But  you  didn't 
understand  me  exactly.  John  loves  you  very, 
very  much;  you  know  that.  When  I  said  he 
didn't  care,  I  wasn't  thinking  of  you  at  all,  but 
of  other  things :  books,  you  know,  and  plays, 
and  politics.  And  he's  perfectly  sure  to  come 
out  right,  just  as  I  said  he  was,  no  matter  what 
he  goes  through.  Only  I  think  both  of  you  will 
be  happier  if  you  keep  quite  out  of  his  business 
world,  and  don't  let  him  bring  it  home  with  him, 
but  try  to  interest  him  in  other  things  when 
you're  with  him,  and  make  him  forget  all  about 
his  business ;  and  the  only  way  to  do  that  is 
not  to  know.  Don't  you  see,  dear  ? " 

She  paused,  and  for  a  moment  stroked  the 
flushed  forehead.  Then  she  went  on,  speak- 
ing almost  playfully  :  — 

"  So  I  want  you  to  promise  me  that  you  won't 
ask  John  about  those  things,  or  let  him  explain 


Beginnings  23 

them,  even  if  he  wants  to.  It  may  be  hard  some- 
times, but  it's  better  that  way.  Will  you  ? " 

Alice  nodded  uncomprehendingly ;  Harriet 
kissed  her  good  night,  and  rose  to  leave  the 
room. 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  he  loves  me  better  than 
the  bank  ? "  the  young  girl  asked,  smiling,  albeit 
somewhat  tremulously. 

"Quite  sure,"  laughed  Harriet;  "whole  lots 
better." 

When  Sponley  came  in,  still  later  that  even- 
ing, she  told  him  of  John's  offer. 

"  How  did  he  come  out  with  his  explanation  ?" 
he  asked. 

"  I  didn't  let  him  begin.  I  changed  the  sub- 
ject." 

"  It's  just  as  well.  He's  lucky  if  he  can  ever 
make  her  understand  how  to  indorse  a  check, 
let  alone  anything  more  complicated." 

"  I  fancy  that's  true,"  Harriet  said,  and  she 
added  to  herself,  "  of  course  it's  true.  I've  had 
all  my  worries  for  nothing,  and  have  frightened 
Alice  half  to  death.  But  then,  she  didn't  under- 
stand it." 

"Anyway,  I'm  glad  that  you  understand," 
Sponley  was  saying. 


24  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  I'm  glad,  too,"  she  answered,  and  kissed 
him. 

John  and  Alice  were  married,  as  they  had 
planned,  in  April ;  but  the  wedding  trip  was 
cut  short  by  a  telegram  from  Dawson,  direct- 
ing John  to  go  to  Howard  City,  to  assume  the 
management  of  the  First  National  Bank  there ; 
and  the  house  they  had  chosen  and  partly  fur- 
nished had  to  be  given  up  to  some  one  else. 
Alice  cried  over  it  a  good  deal,  and  John  was 
sorely  puzzled  to  understand  why  she  should 
feel  badly  over  his  promotion. 

Ah,  well,  that  was  long  ago ;  fifteen  —  seven- 
teen years  ago.  They  have  been  comfortable, 
uneventful  years  to  John  and  Alice;  whether 
or  not  you  call  them  happy  must  depend  on 
what  you  think  happiness  means.  They  have 
brought  prosperity  and  more  promotions,  and 
John  is  back  in  the  city,  vice-president  of  the 
great  Atlantic  National.  But  his  ambition  has 
not  been  satisfied,  for,  on  the  Christmas  Eve 
when  we  again  pick  up  the  thread  of  his  life, 
his  father,  old  John  Bagsbury,  crustier  and  more 
withered  than  ever,  and  more  than  ever  distrust- 
ful of  his  son's  ability,  is  still  president  of  Bags- 
bury  and  Company's  Savings  Bank. 


CHAPTER  II 

DICK    HASELRIDGE 

ON  this  Christmas  Eve  Dick  Haselridge  was 
picking  her  way  swiftly  through  the  holiday 
crowd,  but  her  glance  roved  alertly  over  the 
scene,  and  everything  she  saw  seemed  to  please 
her.  The  cries  of  the  shivering  toy  venders  on 
the  sidewalk,  and  the  clashing  of  gongs  on  the 
overcrowded  cable  cars  that  passed,  came  to 
her  ears  with  a  note  of  merriment  that  must 
have  been  assumed  especially  for  Christmas- 
tide.  To  walk  rapidly  was  no  easy  matter,  for 
the  motion  of  the  crowd  was  irregular  ;  now 
fast,  across  some  gusty,  ill-lighted  spot,  now 
slowing  to  a  mere  stroll,  and  now  ceasing  alto- 
gether before  a  particularly  attractive  shop 
window.  The  wind,  too,  had  acquired  a  mis- 
chievous trick  of  pouncing  upon  you  from  an 
always  unexpected  direction.  Dick  scorned 
to  wear  a  veil  in  any  weather,  and  her  hair 
blew  all  about  and  into  her  eyes,  and  as  one 
25 


26  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

of  her  hands  was  occupied  with  her  muff  and 
her  purse,  and  the  other  with  keeping  her  skirts 
out  of  the  slush,  she  would  pause  and  wait  for 
the  wind  to  blow  the  refractory  lock  out  of  the 
way  again.  Then  she  would  laugh,  for  it  was 
all  part  of  the  lark  to  Dick,  and  start  on. 

In  one  of  these  pauses  she  saw  a  little  imp- 
faced  newsboy  looking  up  at  her  with  a  grin  so 
infectious  that  she  smiled  back  at  him.  The 
effect  of  that  smile  upon  the  boy  was  immediate ; 
he  sprang  forward,  collided  with  one  passer-by, 
then  with  another,  and  seemed  to  carrom  from 
him  to  a  position  directly  in  front  of  Dick. 

"  Did  ye  want  a  piper,  miss  ? "  he  gasped. 
He  was  still  grinning. 

"Yes,"  laughed  Dick,  and  heedless  of  the 
slush  she  let  go  her  skirt  and  drew  the  purse 
from  her  muff. 

"  This  is  jolly,  isn't  it  ?  "  she  said,  fishing  a  dime 
from  her  purse  and  handing  it  to  him.  "  Oh,  I 
haven't  any  place  to  carry  a  paper.  Never 
mind.  I'll  get  it  from  you  some  other  time. 
Merry  Christmas,"  and  with  a  bright  nod  she 
was  gone. 

They  had  stood  —  Dick  and  the  newsboy  — 
in  the  strong  light  from  a  shop  window,  and  the 


Dick  Haselridge  27 

little  scene  may  have  been  noted  by  a  dozen 
persons  in  the  crowd  that  had  flowed  by  them. 
But  one  man  who  had  come  up  from  the  direc- 
tion in  which  Dick  was  going,  a  big  man,  muffled 
to  the  eye-glasses  in  an  ulster,  had  seemed  par- 
ticularly interested.  Dick's  back  was  toward 
him  as  he  passed,  —  she  had  turned  to  the  win- 
dow in  order  to  see  into  her  purse,  —  but  there 
was  something  familiar  about  the  graceful  line 
of  her  slight  figure,  and  he  looked  at  her  closely, 
as  one  who  thinks  he  recognizes  but  cannot  be 
sure,  and  when  he  was  a  few  yards  by  he  looked 
again.  This  time  he  saw  her  face  just  as  she 
nodded  farewell  to  the  newsboy,  and  in  an 
instant  he  had  turned  about  and  was  off  in  pur- 
suit ;  but  when  he  came  up  to  where  the  little 
urchin  was  still  standing,  he  stopped,  fumbled  in 
his  outer  pockets,  drew  out  a  quarter  of  a  dollar, 
and  held  it  out  to  him.  "  Here  you  are,  boy," 
he  said,  and  hurried  after  Dick,  who  was  now 
half  a  square  away. 

When  only  a  few  steps  behind  he  called  :  — 
"  Dick  !     Dick !     What  a  pace   you've   got ! 
Wait  a  bit." 

She  turned,  recognizing  his  voice ;  as  he  came 
alongside,  he  added  :  — 


28  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

11  You  never  were  easy  to  catch,  but  you  seem 
to  be  getting  worse  in  that  respect.  Beast  of  a 
night,  isn't  it  ? " 

It  was  dark,  and  in  the  additional  protection 
of  her  high  fur  collar  Dick  permitted  herself  to 
smile ;  but  she  commented  only  on  the  last  part 
of  his  remark.  The  wrestle  with  the  gale  had 
put  her  out  of  breath,  and  she  spoke  in  gasps. 

"  Oh,  yes — but  it's  a  good  beast.  Like  a  big 
overgrown  —  Newfoundland  puppy." 

He  fell  in  step  with  her,  and  they  walked  on 
more  slowly  in  silence;  for  they  were  good 
enough  friends  for  that.  At  length  she  said,  — 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  home  to  spend 
Christmas." 

"  I  did  expect  to,  but  I  couldn't." 

Her  tone  was  colder  when  she  spoke.  "  It's 
too  bad  that  you  were  detained." 

"  Detained  ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  You  know  what 
I  meant,  Dick.  When  mother  invited  you  to 
spend  the  holidays  with  us,  and  I  thought  from 
what  you  said  that  you  would,  why  I  expected 
to  go,  too.  But  as  long  as  you  stay  here,  why  I 
shall,  that's  all :  you  don't  play  fair,  Dick." 

"  That  spoils  everything,"  she  said  quietly. 
Then  after  a  moment,  "  No,  it  doesn't  either. 


Dick  Haselridge  29 

You  shan't  make  me  cross  on  Christmas  Eve, 
whatever  you  say.  Only,  sometimes  you  make 
it  rather  hard  to  play  fair." 

He  answered  quickly:  "You're  quite  right 
about  that.  I  suppose  I  do,  and  pretty  often. 
How  do  you  put  up  with  me  at  all,  Dick  ? " 

She  laughed.  "  Oh,  I  manage  it  rather  easily. 
You're  nearly  always  good.  Just  now,  for  in- 
stance, walking  away  out  here  with  me.  You'll 
come  in  to  dinner  with  us,  won't  you  ? " 

"  I  think  I'd  better  not.  Mr.  Bagsbury  and 
I  have  had  about  all  we  can  stand  of  each  other 
for  one  week.  We're  getting  used  to  each  other 
by  degrees.  I  wonder  if  I  irritate  him  as  much 
as  he  does  me.  Do  you  really  like  him,  Dick  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said  reflectively,  "  I  really  like  him 
very  much.  But  I  don't  wonder  that  you  don't 
get  on  together.  The  only  thing  either  of  you 
sees  in  the  other  is  the  thing  he  particularly 
hates."  She  laughed  softly.  "  But  rolled  to- 
gether you'd  be  simply  immense." 

"  Call  it  three  hundred  and  sixty  pounds,"  he 
said.  "Yes,  that's  big;  as  big  as  Melville 
Sponley." 

"As  big  as  Mr.  Sponley  thinks  he  is,"  she 
rejoined.  "And  that's  a  very  different  thing. 


30  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

I  hate  that  man.  I  wouldn't  trust  him  behind 
a  —  a  ladder !  " 

They  had  reached  the  Bagsbury's  house,  and 
Dick  held  out  her  hand  to  him.  "  Good  night," 
she  said.  "  I  wish  you  were  coming  in.  Thank 
you  for  walking  home  with  me." 

But  Jack  Dorlin  hesitated.  "  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me,  Dick,  whether  you  mean  to  set- 
tle down  here  to  live  with  the  Bagsburys,  or 
whether  this  is  just  a  visit.  If  I  camp  down 
here  near  by,  and  get  my  piano  and  my  books, 
and  the  rest  of  my  truck  comfortably  set  up  just 
before  you  pack  your  things  and  flit  away,  it'll 
leave  me  feeling  rather  silly." 

She  laughed,  "Why,  they  want  me  to  stay, 
and  I  think  I  will.  I  think  I'll  try  rolling  you 
and  Uncle  John  together.  Good  night."  She 
let  herself  into  the  house  with  a  latch-key  and 
hurried  upstairs  to  her  room ;  but  before  she 
could  reach  it,  she  was  intercepted  in  the  upper 
hall  by  her  aunt. 

"  Dick  !  "  she  exclaimed,  "  where  have  you 
been  ?  I  was  beginning  to  be  dreadfully  wor- 
ried about  you." 

For  reply,  Dick  turned  so  that  the  light  from 
the  chandelier  shone  full  in  her  face.  "  Look 


Dick  Haselridge  31 

at  me,"  she  commanded.  "  Look  at  me  closely, 
and  see  if  you  think  there  is  any  good  in 
worrying  over  a  great  —  healthy  —  animal  — 
like  me." 

She  shook  her  head  at  every  pause,  and  the 
little  drops  of  melted  snow  that  beaded  her 
tumbled  hair  came  rolling  down  her  face ;  and 
then,  slowly,  she  smiled. 

When  Dick  smiled,  even  on  others  of  her  sex, 
that  put  an  end  to  argument.  Alice  Bagsbury 
laughed  a  little,  patted  her  arm  affectionately, 
and  said  :  "  Well,  you're  awfully  wet,  anyway,  so 
run  along  and  put  on  some  dry  things.  And 
John  is  home,  and  we're  going  to  have  dinner 
right  away,  so  you'll  have  to  hurry." 

"I'll  be  down,"  said  Dick,  pausing  as  if  for 
an  exact  calculation,  "in — eight  minutes.  Will 
that  do  ? " 

Her  aunt  nodded  and  laughed  again,  and 
went  downstairs,  while  Dick,  laying  her  watch 
on  her  dressing  table,  prepared  to  justify  her 
arithmetic. 

It  was  a  sort  of  miracle  that  Dick  Haselridge 
was  not  spoiled.  Her  mother,  John  Bagsbury's 
sister  Martha,  remembering  her  own  dismal 
childhood,  had  gone  far  in  the  other  direction, 


32  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

and  Dick  had  never  known  enough  repression 
or  discipline  at  home  to  be  worth  mentioning. 
Dick's  real  name,  let  it  be  said,  was  her  moth- 
er's, Martha,  but  as  her  two  first  boon  compan- 
ions had  borne  the  names  Thomas  and  Henry, 
her  father,  so  Dick  said,  had  declared  that  it 
was  too  bad  to  spoil  the  combination  just 
because  she  happened  to  be  a  girl,  so  almost 
from  her  babyhood  she  was  known  as  Dick. 
It  was  not  wonderful  that  Dick's  father  and 
mother  allowed  her  to  do  about  as  she  pleased, 
for  her  manner  made  it  hard  to  deny  her  any- 
thing. Long  before  she  was  ten  years  old,  she 
had  made  the  discovery  that  anybody,  friend  or 
stranger,  was  very  likely  to  do  what  she  wanted 
him  to. 

That  was  a  dangerous  bit  of  knowledge  for  a 
child  to  have,  and  it  might  have  been  disastrous 
to  Dick  had  there  not  been  strong  counteracting 
influences  at  work.  Her  father  died  when  she 
was  but  twelve  years  old,  and  thereby  it  came 
about  that  for  the  first  time  in  her  merry  little 
life  Dick  tasted  the  sorrows  and  the  joys  of 
responsibility.  Her  mother,  in  the  few  years 
of  life  that  were  left  her,  never  entirely  recov- 
ered, so  Dick  stayed  at  home  to  keep  her  cheer- 


Dick  Haselridge  33 

ful,  and  avert  the  little  worries  that  came  to 
disturb  her. 

Dick  was  just  seventeen  when  her  mother 
died,  and  she  found  herself  without  a  home  and 
without  a  single  intimate  friend.  For  a  time 
she  was  bewildered  by  her  grief,  but  her  cour- 
age and  her  indomitable  buoyancy  asserted 
themselves,  and  she  took  the  tiller  of  her  life 
in  hand,  to  steer  as  good  a  course  as  she  could 
without  the  advice  or  assistance  of  anybody. 

Ever  since  the  death  of  Victor  Haselridge, 
John  Bagsbury  had  kept  a  sort  of  track  of  his 
sister,  and  when  she  died,  he  wrote  Dick  a  let- 
ter, asking  her  to  come  and  live  with  him  and 
Alice ;  but  Dick  had  determined,  first  of  all, 
to  go  to  college,  so  she  declined  the  invitation. 
She  had  not  been  what  one  would  call  a  stu- 
dious child,  but  she  was  keenly  interested  in 
things,  and  she  learned  easily,  and  she  had 
contrived  in  one  way  or  another  to  pick  up 
enough  information  to  satisfy  the  entrance  re- 
quirement of  the  college  she  had  chosen.  It 
was  a  wise  decision,  for  in  college  she  was  busy, 
she  was  popular,  and  that,  as  it  did  not  turn  her 
head,  was  good  for  her,  and  best  of  all,  she 
found  a  few  intimate  friends. 


34  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

The  first  of  these  was  Edith  Dorlin  :  they 
were  fast  friends  before  the  fall  term  was  well 
begun,  and  as  a  result  Dick  went  home  with  her 
to  spend  the  Thanksgiving  recess.  In  those 
few  days  Mrs.  Dorlin  fell  quite  in  love  with  her, 
as  did  also  Edith's  brother  Jack,  who  was  four 
years  older  than  his  sister  and  in  his  junior  year 
at  college.  The  Dorlins  made  what  was  almost 
a  home  for  her  during  her  four  college  years, 
and  as  the  time  for  graduation  grew  near, 
Edith  and  her  mother  both  besought  Dick  to 
make  her  home  with  them  permanently.  Jack 
also  asked  her  to  come,  but  his  invitation  in- 
cluded marrying  him,  and  Dick,  though  she  was 
really  very  fond  of  him,  did  not  love  him  in  the 
least,  so  in  spite  of  their  combined  entreaties  she 
had  announced  her  intention  of  going  abroad 
for  a  year  or  two ;  whereupon  Jack,  averring 
that  he  was  not  cut  out  for  a  lawyer,  and  that 
he  was  tired  of  getting  his  essays  on  things  in 
general  back  from  the  magazines,  decided  that 
he  ought  to  do  something  with  his  music  and 
began  planning  to  go  to  Berlin  to  study. 

But  the  Bagsburys  had  not  entirely  lost  sight 
of  Dick,  and  on  her  commencement  day  John 
appeared  and  repeated  his  invitation  that  she 


Dick  Haselridge  35 

come  and  live  with  them,  or  at  least  make  them 
a  long  visit.  Somewhat  to  Dick's  surprise  she 
accepted;  partly  because  the  idea  of  having 
any  sort  of  a  home  appealed  to  her,  and  partly 
because,  in  spite  of  her  prejudice  against  him, 
she  liked  John,  with  his  strong,  alert  way,  and 
his  bluntness,  and  his  cautious  keeping  within 
the  fact ;  and  then  —  this  was  the  strongest  rea- 
son of  all  —  his  mouth  and  something  in  the  in- 
flection of  his  voice  reminded  her  of  her  mother. 

Jack  Dorlin's  disgust  when  he  heard  of 
Dick's  decision  quite  outran  his  power  of 
expression. 

"Don't  you  think  yourself  that  it's  mildly 
insane  ? "  he  asked  her. 

"  I'm  not  going  there  to  live,"  said  Dick ; 
"  at  least,  I  don't  know  that  I  am.  Not  unless 
they  like  me  awfully  well." 

"  But  just  try  to  think  a  minute,"  he  went  on, 
trying  hard  to  preserve  an  argumentative  man- 
ner ;  "  here  are  we  who  have  known  you  all 
your  life  —  " 

She  smiled,  and  he  exclaimed  impatiently. 

"  Oh,  don't  be  so  literal !  I  have  known  you 
—  always,  and  can't  you —  " 

He  broke   off  short.     Then  without  giving 


36  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

her  time  to  say  the  words  that  were  on  her  lips, 
he  added  quickly  :  — 

"  I  know,  Dick.  I  know.  Don't  tell  me 
again.  I  didn't  mean  to  speak  that  way ;  it 
got  away  from  me.  But  I  can't  see  the  sense 
of  your  going  away  off  to  live  with  some  people 
you've  never  seen.  Mother  and  Edith  and  I 
have  known  you  four  years,  and  we  do  like  you 
awfully  well;  there's  no  'unless'  about  it." 

"  Don't  try  to  argue  any  more,  Jack,"  she 
said.  "  I'm  going  to  visit  the  Bagsburys.  I 
don't  know  how  long  I'll  stay;  it  may  be  a 
month,  and  it  may  be  a  year,  and  I  may  find 
a  home  there.  But  I  shall  miss  you  all  dread- 
fully, and  you  must  write  me  lots  of  letters. 
Tell  me  all  about  your  life  in  Berlin,  and  how 
your  music  is  going  —  and  everything." 

"  I  rather  doubt  my  getting  to  Berlin  this 
year,"  he  said  cautiously. 

He  would  tell  her  nothing  more  definite,  but 
she  was  not  really  surprised  when,  before  she 
had  been  a  week  with  the  Bagsburys,  he  came 
to  call  on  her.  He  was  as  unconcerned  about 
it  as  though  he  had  lived  all  his  life  just  around 
the  corner. 

He  was  so  jolly  and  companionable,  so  much 


Dick  Haselridge  37 

the  old  comrade  and  so  little  the  despairing 
lover  that,  try  as  she  might,  Dick  could  not  be 
sorry  that  he  was  there.  He  would  tell  her 
nothing  about  his  plans  save  that  he  meant 
to  stay  around  for  a  while.  He  said  he  found 
he  could  think  better  when  he  was  within  a 
mile  of  where  she  lived,  and  no  entreaties  could 
drive  him  away. 

That  was  in  July,  and  now,  at  Christmas,  the 
situation  was  unchanged.  With  any  other  man 
it  would  have  been  intolerable,  but  he  was  dif- 
ferent. Save  on  rare  occasions,  he  was  always 
just  as  on  that  first  evening,  the  same  lazy, 
amused,  round-faced,  good-hearted  Jack.  And 
she  was  forced  to  admit  to  herself  that  she  was 
glad  he  had  persisted  in  disobeying  her. 

He  was  easily  the  best  friend  she  had.  To 
no  one  else  could  she  show  her  thoughts  just 
as  they  came,  without  stopping  first  to  look  at 
them  and  see  if  they  held  together.  With  no 
one  else  did  she  feel  beyond  the  possibility  of 
misunderstanding.  He  was  —  oh,  he  was  the 
best  of  good  comrades. 

Ah,  Dick!  your  eight  minutes  have  slipped 
away  and  another  eight,  and  still  you  are  not 
dressed  for  dinner. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   WILL 

IN  quite  another  quarter  of  the  city  from  the 
crowded  thoroughfare  where  we  first  saw  Dick, 
is  another  street,  very  different,  but  quite  as 
interesting.  It  is  narrow  and  dark ;  it  does  not 
celebrate  the  holiday  time  with  gayly  dressed 
shop  windows ;  between  the  two  black  ranks 
of  buildings  that  front  on  it,  it  is  quite  empty, 
save  for  alert  policemen  who  patrol  it,  and  the 
storm  which  has  became  ill  natured  as  it  whips 
angrily  around  corners.  You  may  search  as 
you  will  about  this  great  city,  but  you  will 
hardly  find  a  spot  more  dismal,  more  chilling, 
more  to  be  shunned  on  this  jolly  Christmas  Eve. 
There  is  no  doubt  a  dreariness  of  poverty,  but 
the  dreariness  of  wealth  is  worse ;  hidden, 
guarded,  vaulted  wealth,  like  that  which  lies 
behind  these  thick  stone  walls.  For  this  street 
is  the  commercial  heart  of  a  great  commercial 
city.  And  by  day  all  about  in  the  city  and  the 
38 


The   Will  39 

country,  in  the  great  shops  and  office  buildings 
and  in  the  country  store,  men  buy  and  sell,  lend 
and  borrow,  without  money,  only  with  a  faith 
in  the  wealth  this  cheerless  street  contains. 
Should  it  be  destroyed,  should  the  faith  in 
it  be  shaken  but  for  a  day,  unopened  shutters 
would  bear  the  bills  of  sheriffs'  sales,  and 
cold  ashes  would  lie  under  the  boilers  of  great 
factories.  At  night  the  heart  stops  beat- 
ing, the  crowds  go  away,  and  that  which  has 
been  sent  throbbing  through  the  arteries  of 
trade  comes  back  to  lie  safely  in  thick  steel 
chambers,  where  barred  doors  bear  cunning 
locks  that  never  sleep,  but  tick  watchfully  till 
morning. 

Upon  this  street,  squeezed  in  uncomfortably 
by  two  of  the  modern  towers  of  Babel  which  our 
civilization  seems  to  have  made  necessary,  stands 
a  thick,  squat  building  of  an  older  architecture, 
which  might  look  rather  imposing,  did  not  its 
sky-scraping  neighbors  dwarf  it  to  a  mere  notch 
between  them.  And  in  front  of  this  building, 
which  is,  as  you  may  have  guessed,  the  home  of 
Bagsbury  and  Company's  Savings  Bank,  there 
drew  up,  at  about  eight  o'clock  on  this  Christ- 
mas Eve,  a  carriage.  A  footman  clambered 


40  The  Banker  and  tlie  Bear 

numbly  from  the  box,  opened  the  door,  and 
helped  old  Mr.  Bagsbury  to  extricate  himself 
from  his  nest  of  rugs  and  furs ;  then  he  almost 
carried  the  old  man  across  the  wind-swept  side- 
walk and  up  the  stairs,  transferring  him  at  the 
door  to  the  care  of  Thomas  Jones,  the  watch- 
man. 

"  Call  for  me  in  about  an  hour,  James.  I 
shall  have  —  Ah,  that  gale  is  bitter !  —  I  shall 
have  finished  by  that  time." 

Thomas  Jones  led  him  to  the  little  private 
office  in  the  corner,  lighted  the  gas,  and  then 
went  out,  closing  the  door  behind  him.  Left 
alone,  the  old  man  dropped  into  a  chair  and 
sat  there  shivering  for  several  minutes ;  his 
coat  was  still  buttoned  tightly  round  him,  and 
his  heavily  gloved  hands  were  crammed  into  the 
pockets.  The  fire  of  life  was  burning  very  low 
in  old  John  Bagsbury,  and  he  knew  it ;  an  in- 
stinct, which  he  did  not  even  try  to  reason  with, 
often  took  him,  even  on  wild  nights  like  this,  to 
the  badly  lighted  room  that  was  his  only  real 
home. 

Finally  he  rose  and  walked  to  his  private  safe, 
and,  after  fumbling  with  stiff  fingers  over  the 
combination,  opened  it  and  took  out  a  small 


The   Will  41 

iron  box  which  he  carried  to  the  desk.  Then, 
sitting  down  before  it,  he  drew  off  his  fur 
gloves  and  took  out  the  neat  piles  of  memo- 
randa and  the  papers  which  it  contained.  There 
was  nothing  to  be  done  to  them,  for  his  affairs 
had,  for  years,  been  perfectly  ordered ;  but  he 
read  over  the  carefully  listed  securities  as 
though  he  expected  to  find  some  mistake.  The 
lists  were  long,  for  he  was  rich ;  not  so  im- 
moderately rich,  it  is  true,  as  he  would  have 
been,  had  there  been  a  generous  admixture  of 
daring  with  his  great  shrewdness  and  caution, 
but  still  rich  enough  to  count  his  fortune  by 
the  millions. 

After  a  while,  he  laid  the  other  papers  back 
in  the  box,  moved  it  a  little  to  one  side  to  make 
room,  spread  a  large  document  out  flat  on  the 
desk  and  bent  over  it,  rubbing  his  cramped  old 
hands  together  between  his  knees,  and  smiling 
faintly.  Yes,  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  it ; 
it  was  sane,  it  was  clear,  it  was  inviolable ;  it 
would  hold  safe  the  thing  he  loved  best,  from 
rash  hands  that  would  recklessly  destroy  it. 

In  a  small,  snug  room  in  young  John  Bags- 
bury's  house,  by  courtesy  a  library,  though  one 


42  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

modest  case  held  all  its  books,  John  and  Dick 
Haselridge  were  talking,  or,  rather,  John  was 
talking,  while  Dick  listened.  They  were  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  big  desk  that  occupied  the 
middle  of  the  room,  John  in  the  easy-chair,  and 
Dick  in  the  swivel  chair  that  stood  before 
the  desk,  where  she  could  make  little  pencil 
sketches  on  the  blotter.  They  were  alone,  for 
Martha,  John's  thirteen-year-old  daughter,  had 
gone  to  bed  long  ago,  and  Alice,  who  always 
grew  sleepy  very  soon  after  John  began  talk- 
ing shop,  had  followed  her.  It  was  by  no 
means  the  first  of  the  long  talks  John  and  Dick 
had  had  together,  for  he  had  not  been  slow  to 
discover  and  delight  in  her  swift  comprehension 
and  her  honest  appreciation  of  the  turns  and 
twists  of  his  business.  There  was  no  affecta- 
tion in  her  display  of  interest,  for  the  active 
side  of  life,  the  exercise  of  judgment  and  skill, 
appealed  to  her  very  strongly. 

But  to-night  the  talk  had  taken  another  turn, 
and,  somewhat  to  his  own  alarm,  John  found 
himself  telling  her  about  his  gloomy  boyhood, 
his  disappointment  in  his  father's  bank,  and 
the  ambition  which  had  driven  him  out  of  it. 
His  talk  revealed  to  Dick  more  than  he  knew ; 


The  Will  43 

for  between  the  words  she  could  read  how  the 
still  unfulfilled  ambition  was  not  dead,  but 
stronger  than  ever;  how  the  successes  of  all 
those  years  meant  nothing  to  him,  except  as 
they  hastened  the  time  when  he  should  have 
the  policy  of  Bagsbury  and  Company's  Savings 
Bank  in  his  own  hands. 

If  it  was  easy  to  talk  to  Dick,  it  was  delight- 
ful to  watch  her  as  she  listened.  She  had 
pushed  aside  the  reading  lamp,  and  with  her 
hands  was  shading  her  eyes  from  its  light ;  but 
still  he  could  see  the  quick  frown  which  would 
draw  down  her  brows  when  the  meaning  of  one 
of  his  technicalities  baffled  her,  and  her  nod  of 
comprehension  when  she  understood.  There 
was  no  need  for  explanation  now :  he  was  tell- 
ing her  of  his  first  meeting  with  Sponley,  and 
how  the  desire,  aroused  by  the  speculator's  sug- 
gestion that  he  leave  his  father's  bank,  had 
grown  until  it  was  irresistible,  and,  finally,  how 
he  had  told  his  father  of  his  determination  to 
go  to  work  for  Dawson. 

At  the  mention  of  Sponley's  name  Dick  had 
dropped  her  eyes,  and  the  pencil  resumed  its 
play  over  the  blotter;  her  dislike  for  the  man 
was  so  strong  that  she  was  afraid  of  showing 


44  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

it  to  his  friend.  But  when  John  told  her  of 
his  parting  from  his  father,  she  looked  up 
again. 

"  That  must  have  been  a  terrible  disappoint- 
ment to  —  grandfather,"  she  said  slowly. 

"  I  never  heard  you  call  him  that  before." 

"  I  don't  believe  I  ever  did ;  I  know  I  never 
have  thought  of  him  that  way.  And  I  never 
was  truly  sorry  for  him  till  just  now." 

"  Sorry  for  him  !  "  John  exclaimed. 

Dick  nodded.  "  Perhaps  because  it's  Christ- 
mas Eve,"  she  said. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  she  asked  a  moment  later, 
"that  he'll  come  over  to-morrow?  He  always 
comes  on  Christmas,  doesn't  he  ? " 

"  Nearly  always,"  he  answered.  "  He  gener- 
ally comes  two  or  three  times  a  year.  But  he's 
getting  pretty  old  now." 

"  What  an  utterly  lonely  life  he's  led  all  these 
years,"  said  Dick.  "Think  of  it!  I  wonder — " 

The  sharp  jangle  of  the  telephone  bell  cut  her 
short.  John  sprang  up  to  answer  it. 

"Yes.  Who  is  this?  —  Thomas  Jones?  Oh, 
yes  —  at  the  bank  —  What  do  you  say  ?  — 
Are  you  sure  ?  Have  you  a  doctor  there  ?  — 
Yes,  I'll  be  over  directly." 


The   Will  45 

He  turned  to  Dick,  who  had  risen  and  was 
standing  close  beside  him. 

"  I've  got  to  go  out  for  a  while,"  he  said. 
"  There's  —  a  man  —  sick  over  at  the  bank." 

"  Who  is  it  ? "  she  asked.    "  Is  it  grandfather  ? " 

John  answered  her,  "  He's  over  at  our  bank 
—  his  bank.  The  watchman  telephoned.  He 
thinks  he's  dead,  but  it  may  be  only  a  faint. 
I'm  going  down  there  right  away." 

As  he  spoke,  he  turned  back  to  the  telephone ; 
his  hand  was  on  the  bell  crank  when  Dick 
said :  — 

"I'm  going,  too.  You  telephone  for  a  car- 
riage, and  I'll  be  ready  as  soon  as  it  comes." 

"  You !  You  mustn't  go.  There'll  be  nothing 
you  can  do." 

"I  want  to  —  very  much,"  she  answered. 
"  Please  take  me." 

With  a  nod  of  assent  he  rang  the  bell,  and  she 
hurried  from  the  room. 

Their  drive  to  the  bank  was  a  silent  one,  and 
though  they  went  rapidly,  it  seemed  a  long  time 
to  Dick  before  they  stopped  in  front  of  the  dis- 
mal building  in  the  narrow  street.  When  they 
alighted,  John  led  the  way  into  the  bank,  picking 
his  way  about  in  the  dimness  with  the  confidence 


46  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

of  perfect  familiarity ;  he  knew  that  nothing  had 
been  changed  in  all  the  years. 

At  the  door  of  the  private  office  John  paused 
an  instant,  uncovered,  and  looked  about  on  the 
well-known  appointments  of  the  little  room 
before  he  dropped  his  gaze  on  the  stark  figure 
lying  upon  the  worn  old  sofa.  Then  he  walked 
across  to  it,  and  Dick  followed  him  into  the 
office.  The  two  stood  a  minute  looking  down 
in  silence  on  the  figure  of  the  old  man ;  then 
John  turned  and  spoke  to  Thomas  Jones,  who 
had  arisen  from  his  chair  in  the  corner  when 
they  came  in. 

"You  were  right,"  said  John.  "He  is  dead. 
Hasn't  the  doctor  come  ? " 

"  No,  sir.  I  sent  Mr.  Bagsbury's  carriage 
after  him  as  directly  as  I  found  out  what  had 
happened,  before  I  telephoned  to  you.  He 
should  be  here  by  now." 

"  Did  he  die  here,  on  the  sofa,  I  mean  ?  "  John 
asked. 

"  In  his  chair,  sir.  I  heard  a  noise,  and  when 
I  came  in  I  found  that  he  had  fallen  over  on 
the  desk;  his  head  and  arms  were  resting  on 
those  papers.  I  thought  it  might  be  just  a  faint, 
and  carried  him  over  here." 


The   Will  47 

At  the  mention  of  the  desk,  John  turned  to 
it.  There  were  two  minutes  of  silence  after 
Thomas  Jones  had  finished  speaking,  and  then 
they  heard  in  the  street  the  rumble  of  the  car- 
riage. 

"  It's  the  doctor,"  said  John.  "Go  and  bring 
him  up  here." 

The  man  went  out,  and  still  John's  eyes  rested 
on  the  disordered  papers  upon  the  desk.  Dick, 
standing  at  his  left,  but  a  pace  behind  him,  had 
also  turned  her  eyes  from  the  dead  figure  of 
the  old  banker ;  she  was  intently  watching  the 
son's  face.  Once  she  started  to  speak,  but  hesi- 
tated; then,  seeing  a  slight  motion  of  John's 
body,  a  motion  that  seemed  preparatory  to  a 
step  toward  the  desk,  she  took  a  swift  decision. 

"  They're  his  private  papers,  aren't  they  ? " 
she  said.  "  Hadn't  we  better  put  them  away  ? 
They  shouldn't  lie  here." 

"Yes,"  said  John,  decisively.  "Will  you  do 
it?" 

He  stood  watching  her  without  volunteering 
to  help  while  she  laid  the  papers  back  in  the 
iron  box. 

"  It  has  a  spring  lock,"  he  said,  when  she  had 
finished.  "  You  have  only  to  shut  it." 


48  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

When  he  heard  the  lock  click,  he  walked  to 
the  safe  and  pulled  open  the  heavy  door.  Dick 
carried  the  box  to  the  safe  and  put  it  in,  and 
John  shut  the  door,  shot  the  bolts,  and  spun  the 
combination  knob  around  vigorously. 

"  They're  all  right  now,"  he  said.  Then  he 
walked  to  the  chair  in  the  corner,  though  the 
big  office  chair  that  stood  before  the  desk  was 
nearer,  and  sat  down,  just  as  Thomas  came  in 
with  the  doctor. 

The  day  after  the  funeral  John  went  to  the 
office  of  his  father's  attorney  to  hear  the  reading 
of  the  will.  Judge  Hayes  —  he  had  been  a  judge 
once  —  was  a  stout  little  man  with  a  bald,  round 
head  ;  he  had  no  eyebrows  worth  mentioning 
nor  lashes,  and  altogether  his  red  wrinkled  face 
was  laughably  like  that  of  a  baby.  His  shell- 
rimmed  eye-glasses,  by  looking  ridiculously  out 
of  place,  only  made  this  effect  the  more  striking. 

He  ushered  John  into  his  private  office, 
closed  the  door,  motioned  John  to  a  seat,  sat 
down  heavily  in  his  own  broad  chair,  and  began 
rummaging  fussily  through  his  littered  desk  to 
find  the  will.  It  may  seem  strange  that  a 
lawyer  whom  old  John  Bagsbury  would  trust 
should  be  so  careless  about  an  important  docu- 


The  Will  49 

ment  like  a  last  will  and  testament,  that  finding 
it  in  his  desk  should  be  a  matter  of  difficulty ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  Judge  Hayes  had  looked  in 
every  pigeonhole  in  his  desk,  and  had  opened 
every  drawer  and  shut  it  again  with  a  bang, 
before  his  hand  alighted  upon  the  paper  which 
at  this  moment  meant  more  than  anything  else 
to  the  man  who  sat  waiting.  All  the  while  the 
Judge  had  been  hailing  down  a  shower  of  small 
remarks  upon  all  conceivable  subjects,  and  John 
had  answered  all  of  them  in  a  voice  that  gave  no 
hint  of  impatience. 

At  last  he  unfolded  the  will,  swung  round  in 
his  chair  to  get  a  better  light  on  it,  tilted  back 
at  a  seemingly  perilous  angle,  cleared  his  throat, 
and  said :  — 

"This  storm  makes  it  rather  hard  to  see. 
I  wonder  how  many  more  days  it  will  last  ? " 

"  I  guess  it's  about  worked  itself  out,"  said 
John.  "  It  can't  last  forever." 

Judge  Hayes  began  reading  in  that  rapid 
drone  which  lawyers  affect,  but  he  knew  the  will 
almost  by  heart,  and  he  found  time  to  cast  many 
swift  glances  at  John  Bagsbury. 

John  sat  low  in  his  chair,  his  chin  on  his 
breast,  his  legs  crossed,  his  thumbs  hooked  into 

E 


50 

his  trousers  pockets.  His  eyes  were  half  closed, 
the  lower  lids  being  drawn  to  meet  the  drooping 
upper  ones ;  his  gaze  seemed  fixed  on  one  of 
the  casters  of  the  lawyer's  chair;  his  brows 
bore  the  slight  frown  of  a  man  who  listens 
intently.  And  that  was  all ;  though  the  lawyer's 
glance  grew  more  expectant  and  alert  as  he  pro- 
ceeded, there  was  no  change  in  the  lines  of 
John  Bagsbury's  face  or  figure  to  betray  anger 
or  disappointment  or  annoyance  —  not  even  a 
movement  of  his  suspended  foot. 

Not  until  Judge  Hayes  had  read  the  will  to 
the  last  signature  and  tossed  it  back  into  his 
desk,  did  John  speak. 

"  If  I  have  caught  the  gist  of  it,"  he  said, 
"  my  father  has  left  me  nearly  all  of  his 
fortune  —  " 

"  The  greater  part  of  it,"  corrected  the  lawyer. 

"  Which  amounts  to  something  less  than  three 
million  dollars — " 

"Somewhat  less,  yes;  considerably  less." 

"  But  that  it  is  all  trusteed,"  John  went  on 
quite  evenly,  "  so  that  I  can't  touch  a  cent  of  it, 
except  part  of  the  income." 

"  Not  without  the  express  consent  of  the 
trustees,"  said  Judge  Hayes. 


The   Will  51 

"  The  same  conditions,"  said  John,  with  a 
faint  smile,  "  which  would  apply  to  my  touching 
your  money.  As  I  understand  it,  these  three 
trustees  are  allowed  the  widest  discretion ;  they 
may  do  with  my  property  just  what  they  think 
best  —  " 

The  lawyer  nodded. 

"  Even  to  the  extent  of  turning  it  over  to  me 
unconditionally." 

Here  the  lawyer  smiled.  "  Even  to  that 
extent,"  he  said. 

"They  vote  my  bank  stock  just  as  though 
they  owned  it,"  said  John. 

"  Precisely." 

"  Suppose  they  disagree  ?  " 

"Then  it  can't  be  voted  at  all." 

"  Well,"  said  John,  rising,  "  I  guess  I  under- 
stand. How  soon  shall  we  be  able  to  get  the 
will  proved  ? " 

"  If  everything  goes  smoothly,"  said  the 
Judge,  "that  is,  if  there  is  no  contest  and  no 
irregularity  of  any  sort,  we  should  be  able  to 
prove  it  in  a  week  or  two." 

"There  will  be  no  contest,  I  imagine,"  said 
John.  "  Good  day." 

As  the  door  closed  behind  John,  Judge  Hayes 


52  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

swung  back  to  his  desk,  put  his  elbows  on  it, 
and  his  chin  on  his  hands,  and  for  the  next  ten 
minutes  he  meditated  upon  the  attainments 
and  the  prospects  of  the  man  who  had  just  left 
him.  For  the  past  half  hour  he  had  tried  all 
that  long  experience  and  a  fertile  mind  could 
suggest  to  tear  off  what  he  felt  to  be  John's 
mask  of  indifference.  He  knew  what  a  blow 
that  will  must  be,  and  he  wanted  to  see  how  the 
real  man,  the  man  inside  the  shell,  was  taking 
it.  He  felt  sure  that  the  composure  was  a 
veneer,  and  he  had  done  his  best  to  rasp  through 
it.  "Well,"  he  concluded,  as  he  reluctantly 
turned  to  something  else,  "the  coating  is  laid 
on  confounded  thick." 

As  for  John,  he  was  walking  swiftly  up  the 
street  with  the  unmistakable  air  of  a  man  who 
is  about  to  attempt  something,  and  intends  to 
succeed  in  it.  And  yet,  to  all  appearances,  the 
situation  was  hopeless.  His  father  had  held  a 
majority  of  the  stock  in  the  bank ;  the  rest  was 
in  the  hands  of  investors  who  had  been  attracted 
by  the  eminent  respectability  and  conservatism 
of  the  policy  the  old  man  had  established,  and 
it  was  not  likely  they  would  look  with  favor  on 
anything  in  the  way  of  a  change.  And  the 


The   Will  S3 

three  trustees  whom  old  Mr.  Bagsbury  had 
selected  were  men  after  his  own  heart,  crusty, 
obstinate,  timorous.  They  controlled  John's 
stock — a  majority  of  all  the  stock  of  the  bank 
—  as  absolutely  as  if  they  were  the  joint  owners 
of  it. 

But  an  ironical  providence  has  ordained  that 
excessive  caution  shall  often  overreach  itself, 
and  the  old  man's  attempt  to  make  safer  what 
was  already  safe,  gave  John  his  opportunity. 
Had  there  been  but  one  trustee,  John's  case 
would  indeed  have  been  hopeless ;  but  old  Mr. 
Bagsbury,  finding  it  impossible  to  trust  any  one 
man  utterly,  had  trusted  three. 

In  a  flash  of  intuition  John  had  seen  his 
chance  and  had  asked  Judge  Hayes  the  ques- 
tion, whose  significance  the  lawyer  had  failed  to 
grasp,  even  as  he  answered  it.  As  John  walked 
along  the  street  he  smiled  over  a  proverb  which 
was  running  in  his  head.  Doubtless  it  was  a 
wild  injustice  to  think  of  three  blameless  old 
men  as  rogues,  but  in  their  falling  out  lay  John's 
hope  of  coming  into  his  own.  For  if  the  trus- 
tees should  disagree  as  to  the  way  his  stock 
should  be  voted  at  the  annual  meeting,  it  could 
not  be  voted  at  all ;  and  if  John  and  his  friends 


54  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

could  get  control  of  more  than  half  the  stock 
now  in  the  hands  of  outsiders,  he  could  put 
himself  where,  he  knew  he  belonged,  at  the 
head  of  Bagsbury  and  Company's  Savings 
Bank. 

One  "if"  is  enough  to  bring  most  men  anx- 
iety and  sleepless  nights;  two  "if's,"  both  of 
them  slender  ones,  may  well  drive  a  brave  man 
to  despair.  But  there  was  no  thought  of  fail- 
ure in  John's  mind ;  he  meant  to  win. 

John  was  one  of  the  best  bankers  in  the  city, 
which  is  another  way  of  saying  that  he  knew 
men  as  well  as  he  knew  markets.  Not  men  in 
a  general,  philosophical  sort  of  way  —  Men,  with 
a  big  letter;  he  had  no  interest  in  "  types."  But 
he  knew  Smith  and  Jones  and  Robinson  right 
down  to  the  ground.  He  knew  the  customers 
of  Dawson's  bank  and  of  other  banks  too  —  men 
who  came  to  him  to  persuade  him  to  lend  them 
money;  he  knew  their  tricks  and  their  tempers 
as  well  as  their  balances.  And  in  all  the  years 
of  waiting  he  had  not  been  ignorant  of  the  way 
things  were  going  with  Bagsbury  and  Company. 
He  knew  his  father's  customers,  his  friends, — 
such  as  they  were,  —  and  he  knew  the  three  old 
trustees,  Meredith,  Cartwright,  and  Moffat. 


The   Will  55 

He  knew  that  you  couldn't  talk  to  Cart- 
wright  ten  minutes  without  having  Meredith 
quoted  at  you,  or  to  Meredith  without  hearing 
some  new  instance  of  Cartwright's  phenome- 
nally accurate  judgment;  that  each  thought  the 
other  only  the  merest  hair's  breadth  his  inferior, 
and  that  they  could  be  relied  on  to  agree  and 
continue  to  agree  indefinitely. 

And  Moffat?  —  John  smiled  when  he  thought 
of  him.  The  one  thing  in  the  world  which 
Moffat  couldn't  tolerate  was  obstinacy;  and  as 
nearly  everybody  Moffat  knew  was  disgust- 
ingly wrong-headed,  old  Mr.  Moffat  found  it 
difficult  to  get  on  smoothly  with  people.  Mof- 
fat could  not  explain  why  men  should  be  so 
cock-sure  and  so  perversely  deaf  to  reason,  but 
certainly  he  found  them  so.  It  was  most  un- 
fortunate, because  though  by  intention  one  of 
the  most  peaceable  of  men,  he  was  constantly 
being  driven  by  righteous  indignation  into 
quarrels. 

When  John  left  Judge  Hayes,  he  headed 
straight  for  Mr.  Moffat's  office.  The  old  gen- 
tleman welcomed  him  cordially,  for  he  had 
always  held  Mr.  Bagsbury  in  the  highest 
esteem,  and  was  prepared,  if  he  should  find  in 


56  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

John  his  father's  common  sense,  to  think  well 
of  him,  too. 

John  talked  freely  about  the  will,  and  con- 
fessed his  disappointment  that  his  father  had 
not  thought  him  capable  of  administering  the 
fortune  himself.  He  added,  however,  that  his 
wish  was  the  same  as  his  father's,  that  the  estate 
should  be  kept  safe,  and  that  he  had  no  doubt 
it  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  three  trustees 
his  father  had  chosen.  They  chatted  on  for 
some  time,  John  feeling  his  way  cautiously 
about  among  the  old  man's  opinions,  dropping 
a  word  now  and  then  about  Cartwright  or 
Meredith,  until  finally  he  drew  this  remark 
from  Mr.  Moffat:  — 

"I  have  only  the  barest  acquaintance  with 
my  fellow-trustees.  Do  you  know  them  well  ? " 

"I've  known  them  for  a  good  many  years," 
John  answered,  "though  I  can't  say  that  I 
know  them  well.  They're  thoroughly  honora- 
ble, and  they  have  some  ability,  too.  You'll  find 
they  have  a  disagreeable  habit  of  backing  each 
other  up,  though.  In  that  respect,  they're  like 
a  well-trained  pair  of  setter  dogs.  If  one 
points,  the  other  will  too,  and  he'll  stick  to  it 
whether  he  sees  anything  or  not.  But  I've  no 


The   Will  57 

doubt  you'll  be  able  to  get  along  with  them  well 
enough." 

With  that  he  shifted  the  subject  abruptly  on 
another  tack,  and  a  few  minutes  later  took  his 
leave.  He  was  well  satisfied  with  the  after- 
noon's work,  for  he  felt  confident  that  the  Bags- 
bury  holdings  would  not  be  voted  at  the  next 
stockholders'  meeting.  It  was  a  little  seed  he 
had  sown,  but  it  had  fallen  into  good  ground. 

He  went  straight  home  after  that  and  found 
Dick  curled  up  in  the  big  chair  in  the  library, 
reading.  She  glanced  up  at  him,  and  as  he 
spoke  to  her  there  was  a  vibrant  quality  in  his 
voice  that  made  her  close  her  book  and  ask  him 
what  had  happened. 

"  I'm  just  going  to  telephone  to  Sponley," 
he  said.  "  Listen,  and  you'll  hear  part  of  it. 
That'll  save  telling  it  twice." 

Over  the  telephone  he  told  Sponley  all  about 
the  terms  of  the  will,  adding  that  his  only 
chance  now  lay  in  getting  control  of  the  outside 
stock.  He  asked  Sponley  to  come  to  the  house 
that  night  after  dinner  to  talk  things  over. 

Then  he  rang  off,  and  sitting  down  on  the 
desk  he  told  Dick  what  he  had  not  told  Spon- 
ley, all  about  his  interview  with  M  off  at.  And 


58  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

though  Dick  nodded  her  pretty  head  apprecia- 
tively, and  seemed  thoroughly  to  grasp  the  situa- 
tion, yet  when  he  finished  her  face  still  wore  a 
puzzled  frown. 

John  was  too  busy  making  his  plans  to  think 
much  of  it,  but  he  wondered  vaguely  what  she 
had  failed  to  understand. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  VICTORY 

DICK  was,  indeed,  somewhat  bewildered  and 
disappointed.  Had  the  events  of  Christmas 
Eve  and  the  few  following  days  occurred 
during  the  first  month  of  her  stay  with  the 
Bagsburys,  she  would  have  made  no  attempt 
to  look  beneath  the  surface,  but  would  have 
packed  her  trunks  and  fled  out  of  that  grimy 
atmosphere  with  the  least  possible  delay;  and 
poor  Jack  Dorlin  would  have  had  to  pull  up  his 
stakes  and  follow,  who  knows  whither.  But  in 
the  six  months  she  had  developed  an  affection 
for  both  John  and  Alice.  She  could  not  have 
told  you  why.  They  were  totally  different 
from  her  other  friends.  But  our  affections  are 
based  on  no  analysis.  We  like  or  love,  not  at 
all  because  we  see  in  this  person  or  that  a 
certain  combination  of  qualities,  no  more  than 
we  like  beefsteak  because  it  contains  carbon 
and  hydrogen  and  other  uninviting  elements 
59 


60  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

in  a  fixed  proportion.  Perhaps  Dick  liked  John 
and  Alice  because  they  had  become  so  fond 
of  her,  because  they  gave  her  their  confidences, 
or  because  she  had  brought  a  sweeter,  fresher 
influence  into  their  lives  than  either  had  known 
before,  like  a  breath  of  country  air  in  a  smoky 
factory. 

She  thought  a  good  deal  in  the  course  of  the 
first  weeks  following  old  Bagsbury's  death  and 
the  reading  of  the  will.  She  could  not  forget 
the  scene  she  had  witnessed,  and  in  which  she 
had  finally  taken  a  part,  in  the  dingy  little 
private  office  at  the  bank.  She  felt  keenly  the 
pathos  of  the  old  man's  death  there,  over  the 
desk  which  held  his  whole  world ;  his  head 
among  the  papers  which  had  received  all  the 
affection  that  his  withered  soul  could  give. 
But  it  was  not  the  old  man's  death  that  had 
made  her  cry  that  night  as  she  drove  home 
alone  in  the  jolting  carriage ;  it  was  the  look  she 
had  seen  in  the  son's  face  as  he  stood  there,  his 
back  to  the  still  figure  on  the  sofa,  and  his  eyes 
fastened  greedily  on  those  same  papers.  In 
this  sordid  presence  even  death  seemed  to  lose 
its  dignity.  Yes,  Dick  had  cried  all  the  way 
home,  simply  with  an  uncontrollable  disgust. 


A   Victory  61 

And  afterward,  so  soon  afterward,  she  had 
seen  his  father's  will  become  for  John  simply 
a  legal  document,  which  stood  in  his  way,  which 
was  to  be  evaded,  if  possible,  because  evasion 
was  swifter  and  surer  than  direct  attack.  For 
accomplishing  his  purpose  no  tool  seemed  too 
small,  no  way  too  devious.  His  disappointment 
over  the  will  was  not  at  all  because  it  showed 
that  he  had  not  gained  his  father's  confidence, 
but  simply  because  it  postponed  or  perhaps 
made  impossible  his  getting  control  of  his 
father's  fortune. 

Dick  knew  how  this  would  have  affected  her 
six  months  before.  She  was  puzzled  and  a  little 
ashamed  to  find  herself  justifying  it  now,  and 
she  feared  that  her  friendship  for  John  was 
blinding  her. 

None  the  less  it  came  about  that  Dick  entered 
enthusiastically  into  the  fight  for  the  control  of 
the  stock.  Hers  was  a  spectator's  part,  and 
night  after  night,  when  around  the  big  desk  in 
the  library  sat  John  and  Robins  and  Sponley, 
and  sometimes  old  Dawson,  who  had  retired 
from  business,  but  whom  John  continued  to 
regard  as  a  sort  of  commercial  godfather ;  when 
the  cigar  smoke  eddied  thick  about  the  read- 


62  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

ing  lamp,  she  would  sit  in  the  easy-chair  in  the 
darkest  corner  of  the  room,  listening  to  the  tele- 
graphic sentences  which  were  shot  back  and 
forth. 

Then  there  were  the  evenings,  and  these  too 
were  frequent,  when  Jack  Dorlin  would  come 
over  and  listen  with  what  grace  he  could  to 
Dick's  account  of  the  progress  of  the  struggle. 
It  did  not  interest  him  particularly ;  but  as  Dick 
would  not  be  induced  to  talk  of  anything  else, 
he  had  to  make  the  best  of  it. 

But  one  night  his  self-control  gave  way. 
Dick  had  been  telling  him,  with  great  gusto, 
how  more  and  more  of  the  outside  stock  was 
either  coming  under  John's  control  or  was  being 
promised  to  his  support,  and  how  old  Mr.  Moffat 
had  already  quarrelled  violently  with  Mr.  Mere- 
dith and  Mr.  Cartwright,  and  that  he  was  coming 
round  to  John's  side  in  a  most  satisfactory  man- 
ner. She  narrated  it,  as  she  did  nearly  every- 
thing, with  just  the  lightest  possible  stress  on  the 
humorous  aspect  of  it ;  but  Jack  sat  through  it 
all  with  unshaken  solemnity. 

"  I  don't  see  that  it's  particularly  funny,"  he 
said  at  last. 

Dick  flushed  quickly,  glanced  at  him  and  then 


A   Victory  63 

back  to  the  fire.  But  he  was  not  looking  at  her, 
and  after  a  little  pause  he  went  on :  — 

"  It  seems  to  me  pretty  small  business,  all 
round.  It's  rather  different  from  anything  I've 
ever  known  you  to  be  interested  in  before.  I 
can't  quite  understand  your  enthusiasm  over 
it." 

"  No,"  said  Dick,  "  I  don't  suppose  you  can." 

Jack  was  warming  to  his  subject,  and  he  mis- 
read her  words  into  an  acknowledgment  that  he 
was  right. 

"  I've  known  you  longer  than  John  Bagsbury 
has,"  he  went  on,  "  and  I  think  that  I've  as  good 
a  claim  to  your  friendship ;  but  I'd  like  to  know 
what  you'd  think  of  me  if  I  should  do  a  trick 
like  that,  —  go  round  and  deliberately  stir  up  a 
row  so  that  I  could  profit  by  it." 

"  I  should  think  you  were  a  cad,"  she  said 
calmly,  "  and  I  should  ask  you  not  to  call  here 
in  the  future." 

"  I  should  like  to  be  able  to  see  what  makes 
the  difference." 

"  Why,  this  is  the  difference,"  Dick  answered 
slowly ;  "  John  Bagsbury  is  the  sort  of  man  that 
does  things;  and  you're — well,  you'd  rather  watch 
other  people  do  them," 


64  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

She  paused  and  glanced  at  his  face ;  then  with 
a  smile  she  went  on  :  — 

"  It's  like  a  football  game.  If  you're  stand- 
ing in  the  side  lines,  you  aren't  allowed  to  punch 
people's  heads,  or  kick  shins,  but  if  you're  run- 
ning with  the  ball,  why  nobody  minds  if  you 
forget  to  be  polite." 

"  That's  a  bit  rough,"  he  said  musingly,  "  but 
I'm  not  sure  that  you're  not  right  —  and  that 
I'm  not  just  about  as  useless  as  that." 

"I  didn't  say  that,"  she  retorted,  "and  I 
don't  mean  it.  It  takes  both  sorts  of  people, 
of  course,  and  I  like  you  a  great  deal  better 
than  I  do  John  Bagsbury;  but  I  find  there's 
rather  more  to  life  than  I  could  see  when  I  first 
came  here ;  and  when  a  man's  strong,  as  he  is, 
and  ambitious,  and  has  a  sort  of  courage  that's 
more  than  just  the  love  of  a  fight,  and  when  he's 
honest  with  himself  and  lives  up  to  what  he 
knows,  why,  I  admire  him  and  I  can  forgive  him 
if  he  has  some  callous  spots.  And  I  don't  think 
that  people  who've  never  had  his  ambitions  or 
temptations  or  anything  can  afford  to  look  down 
on  him." 

When  she  stopped  she  was  breathing  quickly, 
and  her  eyes  were  unusually  bright,  There  was 


A   Victory  65 

a  long  silence,  and  then  she  added,  with  a  little 
laugh,  — 

"  I  never  knew  before  that  I  could  make  a 
speech." 

He  said  nothing,  and  after  a  moment  she 
glanced  at  him  almost  shyly,  to  discover  if  she 
had  offended  him.  He  did  not  look  up,  but 
kept  his  eyes  fixed  thoughtfully  on  the  fire,  so, 
secure  in  his  preoccupation,  she  watched  his 
face  intently.  Their  comradeship  had,  for  years, 
held  itself  to  be  above  the  necessity  of  conversa- 
tion; but  to-night,  as  the  silence  deepened  and 
endured,  it  brought  to  Dick  a  message  it  had 
not  borne  before. 

At  length  he  spoke,  "That's  your  ultima- 
tum, is  it,  Dick  ? " 

There  was  something  in  his  voice  she  had 
never  heard  before,  and  now  she  knew  that  ever 
since  one  evening  long  ago  she  had  been  wait- 
ing to  hear  it.  Her  heart  leaped,  and  a  wave  of 
glad  color  came  into  her  face,  but  she  answered 
very  quietly,  — 

"Yes,  I  suppose  it  is." 

For  a  little  while  he  sat  there  looking  at  the 
fire,  then  he  rose,  and,  standing  beside  her  chair, 
let  his  hand  rest  lightly  on  her  shoulder. 


66  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Good  night,  Dick,"  he  said  simply. 

Next  evening  Robins  and  Bessel  and  Sponley 
came  before  John  had  fairly  finished  his  dinner, 
and  in  the  library  the  smoke  was  thicker  and 
the  talk  choppier  than  ever  before,  and  Dick,  in 
her  dark  corner,  listened  more  intently.  The 
time  for  preparation  was  growing  short;  the 
decisive  day  was  drawing  very  near.  It  could 
easily  be  seen  now  that  the  voting  at  the  stock- 
holders' meeting  would  be  close,  horribly  close, 
provided  always  that  the  trustees  of  John 
Bagsbury's  stock  could  not  agree  as  to  how  it 
should  be  voted. 

Leaving  that  out  of  the  question,  the  fortunes 
of  the  day  hung  upon  a  large  block  of  stock, 
which,  according  to  the  secretary's  book,  was 
the  property  of  Jervis  Curtin.  How  he  meant 
to  vote  it,  how  he  could  be  persuaded  to 
vote  it  for  John's  faction,  was  the  question 
which  the  four  allies  were  met  to  discuss  this 
evening. 

"  Can't  understand  where  he  got  money 
enough  to  buy  a  big  chunk  like  that,"  said 
Robins. 

"  Queer  thing,"  Sponley  answered.  "  Must 
have  made  some  strike  we  don't  know  about. 


A   Victory  67 

Anyhow,  it  seems  he's  got  it,  and  the  Lord 
only  knows  how  he  means  to  vote  it.  I've 
been  talking  to  him  till  I'm  tired,  but  I  can't 
make  him  commit  himself." 

"  Know  any  reason  —  any  personal  reason  — 
why  he's  holding  back  ?  "  asked  Bessel. 

Sponley  shook  his  head.  "  Never  met  him 
before  this  business  came  up,"  he  answered. 

Melville  Sponley  was  playing  badly.  He 
was  a  strong  believer  in  the  efficacy  of  truth, 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  and 
when  forced  to  deviate  from  the  truth  he  always 
tried  to  make  the  deviation  as  narrow  as  possi- 
ble. But  just  this  once,  to  adopt  fencer's  par- 
lance, he  parried  wide ;  he  told  more  of  a  lie 
than  was  necessary,  and  by  one  of  those  haz- 
ards which  are  not  astonishing  only  because 
they  occur  so  frequently,  by  the  veriest  fluke  in 
the  world,  Dick  Haselridge  knew  he  had  lied. 
This  is  how  it  happened.  A  day  or  two  before, 
Dick  had  gone  to  a  song  recital,  and  as  the  pro- 
gramme proved  unexpectedly  short,  she  found 
when  she  came  out  that  the  Bagsbury  carriage 
had  not  yet  come.  While  she  was  debating 
whether  to  wait  for  it  or  to  try  her  fortunes  in 
the  elevated,  Mrs.  Jervis  Curtin  had  offered  to 


68  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

take  her  home.  Dick  had  met  her  just  once 
and  had  not  liked  her,  but  the  rain  was  pouring, 
and  it  was  so  much  easier  to  accept  than  to 
decline  that  she  did  the  former.  On  the  way 
home  Mrs.  Curtin  asked  Dick  to  come  home 
with  her  first  and  have  a  cup  of  tea,  and  Dick, 
who  had  been  thinking  hard  about  something 
else,  assented  before  she  thought. 

They  had  not  been  three  minutes  in  the  little 
reception  room  before  they  heard  footsteps  and 
voices  in  the  hall.  The  portiere  was  thick,  but 
Dick  heard  first  a  high  voice,  which  she  did  not 
know,  and  then  a  gruffer  one,  which  she  seemed 
to  recognize.  As  she  glanced  toward  the  por- 
tiere, Mrs.  Curtin  said,  — 

"  That  must  be  Mr.  Sponley  with  Mr.  Curtin." 
Mrs.  Curtin  had  not  the  smallest  interest 
in  Melville  Sponley,  but  something  must  serve 
for  conversation  until  the  kettle  could  be 
got  to  boil,  and  he  made  the  best  material 
at  hand,  so  she  talked  about  him :  how  a  few 
months  ago  he  had  come  to  see  Mr.  Curtin  a 
number  of  times ;  how  once  he  had  brought  Mrs. 
Sponley  to  call  on  them.  She  told  Dick  what 
she  thought  of  them,  and  what  her  friends 
thought  of  them  and  a  great  deal  more,  which 


A   Victory  69 

bored  Dick  and  herself  also  exceedingly,  so  that 
both  of  them  were  very  much  relieved  when 
it  was  possible  for  Dick  to  take  her  leave. 

But  now ! 

Sponley  had  never  thought  Dick  worth  tak- 
ing into  account.  He  believed  her  apparent 
interest  in  the  fight  for  the  bank  to  be  nothing 
more  than  a  pose.  He  had  met  many  of  those 
women  who  will  affect  an  interest  in  anything 
so  long  as  it  is  out  of  what  used  to  be  consid- 
ered "woman's  sphere,"  and  he  took  it  for 
granted  that  Dick  was  doing  the  same  thing. 
So  though  his  eyes  were  everywhere  else,  they 
never  fell  on  Dick.  Had  he  looked  at  her  now, 
he  would  have  seen  that  she  knew  he  had  lied. 

She  began  to  try  to  think  out  the  meaning  of 
it,  but  checked  herself,  for  she  must  follow  the 
discussion. 

"He's  holding  out  for  something,  that's  all 
there  is  to  it,"  said  Robins.  "What  do  you 
suppose  he  wants?  —  Board  of  Directors?" 

"  He  can't  have  that,  if  he  does  want  it," 
said  John.  "We  couldn't  get  him  in  if  we 
wanted  to  try,  and  he's  not  the  right  sort,  any 
way." 

"Wonder  how  something  with  9.  salary  to  it 


70  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

would  suit  him,"  Sponley  said  thoughtfully.  "  I 
don't  believe  it  would  have  to  be  too  near  the 
top,  either." 

"  Assistant  cashier  ?  "  asked  John. 

Sponley  nodded.  "  Guess  we  could  land  him 
with  that,"  he  said. 

John  smiled  rather  ruefully.  "  We've  got  to 
have  him,  so  I  suppose  we'll  have  to  pay 
the  price.  It'll  simply  mean  putting  in  a 
high-priced  man  for  discount  clerk  to  do  his 
work." 

Those  were  busy  days,  for  while  John  was 
bringing  every  available  resource  into  line  for 
the  approaching  struggle,  Alice  and  Dick 
were  superintending  the  rehabilitation  of  the 
gloomy  old  house  where  John  had  spent  his 
boyhood,  and  which  was  now  to  be  their  home. 
It  would  be  unfair  not  to  mention  Jack  Dorlin 
in  this  connection,  for  his  taste,  his  energy,  when 
he  chose  to  exert  it,  and  his  unlimited  leisure 
made  him  a  most  valuable  ally.  The  three 
spent  about  half  their  days  in  the  big  house,  con- 
sulting, arguing  the  advisibility  of  this  change 
or  that,  arranging  and  rearranging,  until  even 
Dick  admitted  she  was  tired. 

But  she  found  time  to  tell  Jack  all  she  knew 


A   Victory  71 

about  the  fight  for  the  bank,  and  to  her  surprise 
she  found  that  her  enthusiasm  had  proved  con- 
tagious, for  Jack  was  infected  with  as  great  an 
eagerness  over  the  result  as  she  herself. 

Melville  Sponley  had  the  lion's  share  of  their 
discussions,  but  they  could  not  make  out  the 
purpose  of  his  deceit.  They  were  agreed  that 
what  they  knew  was  too  indefinite  to  speak  to 
John  about,  at  least  as  yet. 

"  And  any  way,"  Jack  observed,  "  Sponley 
isn't  an  out-and-out  villain." 

"All  the  same,"  said  Dick,  "I  wish  we  could 
find  out  what  his  purpose  was  in  saying  he  didn't 
know  Mr.  Curtin."  Then  she  added,  laughing, 
"That  does  sound  detectivish,  doesn't  it?  We 
might  set  a  detective  to  following  Mr.  Curtin." 

"  Yes,"  he  answered ;  "  say  we  do." 

The  days  of  preparation  and  struggle  came 
to  an  end  at  last,  and  John  won.  His  father's 
stock  was  not  voted,  and  of  the  Board  of  Direc- 
tors elected  by  the  outside  stock  only  two  were 
likely  to  attempt  to  oppose  his  policy,  while 
the  other  four  were  men  he  could  count  on  to 
help  him.  He  was  sorry  he  had  been  forced 
to  pledge  to  Curtin  the  position  of  assistant 
cashier;  but  he  comforted  himself  with  the 


72  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

reflection  that  the  concession  had  been  well 
worth  the  price. 

He  had  arrived,  not  at  the  goal,  but  rather, 
after  years  of  waiting,  at  what  he  regarded  as 
the  starting  line.  The  situation  was  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  he  had  been  looking  forward 
to.  His  hold  on  the  presidency  was  so  insecure 
that  one  of  a  dozen  accidents  might  dislodge 
him ;  but  he  was  in  no  humor  for  complaining. 
He  had  a  chance,  and  that  was  all  John  Bags- 
bury  needed. 

When  he  came  home,  bearing  the  good  news, 
even  Alice  was  excited,  and  Dick  could  scarcely 
contain  herself.  Jack  came  over  while  they 
were  still  at  dinner,  and  hearing  his  voice  in 
the  hall,  she  rushed  from  the  table  to  welcome 
him. 

"  Well,  we've  won,"  they  cried  simultaneously. 
Then  they  laughed  and  shook  hands,  both  hands, 
and  then  for  a  second  there  seemed  to  be  nothing 
more  to  say. 

Jack  broke  the  silence.  "  When  we  get  fairly 
settled,  you  must  come  down  to  see  us." 

"  We  !  Us ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  Jack !  what  do 
you  mean  ? " 

"Why,"  he  said,  "  I  asked  Mr.  Bagsbury  for 


A   Victory  73 

a  job,  and  he  has  promised  me  one.  I  believe 
it  is  in  what  they  call  the  kindergarten." 

She  had  been  looking  at  him  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  or  not  he  was  making  game  of  her ;  but 
now  she  saw  that  he  was  telling  the  truth,  and 
she  interrupted. 

"  Jack !  Jack  !  "  she  cried.  Then  with  a  little 
laugh  she  began  again.  "  Oh,  you  absurd  —  " 
Again  she  stopped  and  said  composedly  :  — 

"  We've  not  finished  dinner  yet.  Will  you 
come  into  the  dining  room  to  wait,  or  would  you 
rather  go  into  the  library  where  you  can  smoke  ? " 

Jack  went  into  the  library  and  lighted  a  cigar 
very  deliberately.  Then  he  remarked  with  con- 
viction, — 

"  If  she'd  looked  that  way  for  another  second, 
I'd  have  kissed  her." 


CHAPTER  V 

OLD    FRIENDS 

SPONLEY  drove  home  immediately  after  the  re- 
sult of  the  election  became  known ;  but  Harriet 
had  expected  him  earlier,  and  when  she  heard 
the  carriage  drive  up,  she  hurried  into  the  hall 
and  opened  the  door  before  he  reached  it. 

"  How  did  you  come  out  ? "  she  asked. 

"  We  win,"  he  answered,  "  and  comfortably, 
too." 

He  closed  the  door  behind  him  and  then 
kissed  her,  and  while  she  was  helping  him  out 
of  his  great-coat,  he  asked  her  how  her  day  had 
gone. 

"Well  enough,"  she  answered  briefly,  "but 
never  mind  about  that.  I  want  to  know  all 
about  the  stockholders'  meeting." 

From  a  casual  glance  they  seem  to  have 
changed  but  little  since  John  Bagsbury's  wed- 
ding day.  Sponley  has  put  on  another  twenty 
pounds  of  flesh ;  he  is  so  heavy  now  that  he 
74 


Old  Friends  75 

walks  but  little  and  sits  down  whenever  it  is 
possible.  His  hair  is  thinner  and  his  lower  eye- 
lids sag  somewhat,  showing  the  red.  As  for 
Harriet,  her  once  black  hair  is  really  very  gray, 
and  the  lines  are  drawn  deeper  in  her  face ;  but 
her  color  is  as  fresh  as  ever,  and  her  carriage  is 
erect.  Only  a  close  observer  would  note  that 
her  eyes  are  too  bright  and  are  seldom  still,  and 
that  the  color  in  her  cheeks  flickers  at  a  sudden 
noise  or  movement.  When  she  is  left  alone  and 
is  sure  that  no  one  sees,  her  nervous  energy 
seems  to  depart  suddenly  and  leave  her  limp 
and  exhausted ;  then  her  face  grows  haggard, 
and  she  stares  at  objects  without  seeing  them. 

Twenty  years  ago  Sponley  would  have  ob- 
served; he  would  have  surrounded  her  with 
doctors  and  nurses,  or  have  taken  her  away  to 
some  quiet  place  where  she  might  rest.  He 
would  do  all  that  now,  and  more,  only  he  does 
not  see.  For  the  years  have  changed  him  too. 

Melville  Sponley  and  others  like  him  are  the 
soldiers  of  fortune  of  to-day.  The  world  has 
always  known  these  gentry  in  every  grade  in 
the  social  scale,  from  the  great  duke,  who  once 
led  the  armies  of  the  queen  of  England  and  was 
never  unwilling  to  sell  out  to  any  one  who  could 


76  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

afford  to  pay  his  price,  to  the  poor  devil  who, 
for  a  half  crown,  would  drive  a  knife  into  a 
man's  back;  whatever  their  ability,  whatever 
their  weapons,  daggers,  or  collateral  securities, 
they  are  all  alike  in  this  :  that  not  having,  but 
getting,  is  their  purpose  ;  it  is  not  the  stake  but 
the  play  that  interests  them.  In  all  the  active 
years  of  business,  Sponley  has  never  pro- 
duced any  wealth,  he  has  never  fostered  an 
industrial  enterprise  or  any  commercial  inter- 
est whatever ;  he  has  juggled  with  many  and  has 
wrecked  not  a  few.  He  has  fought  now  on  this 
side  of  the  market,  now  on  that,  and  he  has  yet 
to  meet  with  his  first  real  defeat.  That  is  partly 
due  to  luck,  no  doubt,  but  not  so  much  as  many 
men  suppose.  Like  any  other  soldier  of  fortune, 
he  wins  by  the  difference  between  his  nerve  and 
quickness  of  judgment  and  that  of  other  men. 

It  is  very  easy  to  call  such  a  man  a  rascal 
when  you  are  reading  about  him  in  a  book ; 
but  if  you  begin  doing  it  among  the  men  of 
your  acquaintance,  it  will  be  awkward. 

There  is  indeed  a  blind  spot  on  Melville 
Sponley's  moral  retina  which  gives  him  only  a 
very  confused  sense  of  the  eighth  command- 
ment; but  still  Jack  Dorlin  was  right  in  saying 


Old  Friends  77 

that  he  is  not  a  thorough-going  villain.  In  the 
score  of  years  past  he  has  done  much  good ;  he 
has,  whenever  possible,  been  loyal  to  his  friends, 
and  he  has  never  ceased  to  hold  a  genuine 
affection  for  his  wife ;  but  the  struggle  has 
hardened  him,  has  cased  him  in  a  shell,  and  like 
an  old-time  man-at-arms  in  a  helmet,  he  can 
see  only  the  thing  immediately  in  front  of  him. 
Harriet  has  been  in  the  fight,  too,  only  hers 
has  been  the  harder  part.  When  she  married 
Melville  Sponley,  she  gave  up  everything  to 
him,  and  through  all  the  years  she  has  had  no 
interests  but  his.  She  has  followed  all  his 
campaigns,  has  praised  him  and  schemed  with 
him,  and  been  ambitious  as  he  himself  for  his 
success.  Had  she  borne  him  any  children 
whose  care  would  have  brought  a  gentler  influ- 
ence into  her  life,  or  even  if  she  had  been  able 
to  find  any  real  companionship  among  other 
women,  it  might  have  been  different.  But  as 
it  is,  in  spite  of  her  courage  and  determination, 
the  strain  has  been  unendurable,  and  her  nerves 
have  been  breaking,  slowly  at  first,  but  more 
rapidly  in  these  last  few  months ;  and  as  her 
own  ambition  has  always  been  that  she  might 
help  him  win,  the  terror  that  has  dogged  her 


78  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

has  been  that  she  may  prove  a  drag  upon  him. 
So  she  has  told  herself  every  day  that  she  is 
glad  he  does  not  see. 

To  their  friends,  their  home  life  shows  few 
changes  after  the  twenty  years.  It  was  still  as 
comfortable  and  quiet  and  unostentatious  as 
when  John  Bagsbury  was  first  introduced  into 
it.  They  live  in  the  same  house,  and  to-night, 
after  dinner,  they  came  out  into  the  same  big 
fire-lit  room  where  John  met  Alice  Blair. 

Sponley  lighted  a  cigar  and  dropped  into  his 
easy-chair  before  the  fire,  while  Harriet  sat 
down  at  the  piano.  He  never  tired  of  hearing 
her  play,  and  now  he  listened  comfortably  and 
blew  smoke  rings.  But  as  the  minutes  went  by 
her  music  lost  consequence  and  ceased  to  be 
anything  but  a  fitful  progression  of  hard,  disso- 
nant chords.  Once  he  glanced  curiously  at  her, 
but  her  eyes  were  on  the  keys,  and  she  did  not 
see  him.  Finally  she  struck  a  grating  discord, 
softly,  and  continued  it  as  though  loath  to  let 
it  go  until  it  throbbed  away  in  silence. 

"  What  the  dickens  are  you  playing !  "  he 
exclaimed. 

Her  hands  leaped  from  the  keys ;  she  caught 
her  breath  in  a  gasp,  and  there  came  a  splash 


Old  Friends  79 

of  color  into  her  face  followed  by  a  dead  pallor. 
Two  or  three  seconds  passed  before  she  could 
command  her  voice. 

"  You  startled  me,"  she  said  monotonously ; 
"  I  was  thinking." 

"  I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  with  real  concern. 
"You're  so  different  from  other  women  in  the 
matter  of  nerves  that  I  never  think  of  your 
having  any." 

She  smiled  somewhat  ruefully  at  the  com- 
pliment. "  I  was  thinking,"  she  said,  "  about 
that  Jervis  Curtin  affair.  It  puzzles  me.  You 
haven't  told  me  all  about  it." 

She  paused  to  give  him  a  chance  to  reply,  but 
he  only  gazed  meditatively  at  the  thread  of  blue 
smoke  rising  from  his  cigar,  and  after  a  moment 
she  went  on  :  — 

"  Of  course  I  know  that  you  helped  him  out 
a  few  months  ago  when  he  mixed  himself  up 
in  some  speculation  or  other,  and  I  know  Mrs. 
Jervis  Curtin,  too ;  so  that  it  seems  queer  that 
he  should  have  been  able  to  get  hold  of  enough 
of  the  Bagsbury  stock  to  lay  down  the  law  to 
you  and  John." 

"  There's  nothing  to  make  a  mystery  about," 
he  said  at  length.  "  He  hasn't  any  of  the  stock ; 


8o  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

not  a  dollar  of  it.  I  hold  all  that's  in  his  name. 
I  had  him  get  it  for  me  because  I  thought  I 
might  be  able  to  use  it  to  better  advantage 
if  it  wasn't  known  to  belong  to  me." 

"Why  did  you  put  him  in  the  bank  ?  " 

"  He  wanted  it ;  he  can't  afford  to  do  nothing. 
You're  right  in  thinking  that  his  wife  spends 
more  than  his  income,  and  he  needed  the  salary. 
I  put  him  in  just  on  general  principles." 

"  With  the  understanding  that  he's  to  watch 
John  Bagsbury,"  she  said  quickly. 

"  With  no  definite  understanding  at  all.  Of 
course,  in  a  general  way,  he's  there  in  my  inter- 
est, and  he  knows  it." 

"  What  are  you  planning  to  do  to  John  ? " 
she  asked.  "  Stick  him  or  squeeze  him  or 
something  ?  I  thought  you  two  were  friends." 

"  We  are  friends,"  Sponley  answered  slowly, 
patiently,  as  one  might  speak  to  a  child.  "  And 
I'm  not  laying  any  plot  to  stick  him.  Nobody 
does  that  wantonly,  unless  he's  a  great  fool.  It's 
a  kind  of  smartness  that  doesn't  pay.  We  are 
friends,"  he  repeated,  "and  I  hope  we  always 
may  be.  I  honestly  believe  that  our  interests 
lie  together." 

"  Then  I  don't  see  why  you  go  to  the  trouble 
of  hiring  a  man  to  spy  on  him." 


Old  Friends  8 1 

"  If  a  man  could  trust  absolutely  to  his  fore- 
sight, he  wouldn't  have  to  do  things  like  that, 
but  he  can't.  I  don't  expect  to  have  to  fight 
John  Bagsbury ;  but  something  may  turn  up 
that  I'm  not  looking  for.  If  it  does,  I'm  better 
off  for  not  laying  all  my  cards  on  the  table. 
That's  all.  But  I'd  go  a  long  way  to  avoid  a 
fight  with  him." 

"Then  your  friendship  for  him  is  just  like 
your  friendship  for  other  men,  only  a  little 
more  so ;  it  goes  just  as  far  as  it  pays." 

He  said  nothing.  She  rose  abruptly,  walked 
to  the  window,  and  drawing  aside  the  curtain, 
stood  looking  at  the  dusty  snow  on  the  ledge. 
She  had  suddenly  felt  that  she  could  not  bear 
to  look  at  him,  he  sat  so  still.  After  a  moment 
she  spoke  again. 

"  I  knew  it  was  that  way  at  first.  We  made 
friends  with  him  because  we  thought  it  would 
help  along.  But  I  thought  that  in  all  these 
years  he  had  got  to  be  something  more  to  you 
than  just  a  good  investment  that  you'd  hate 
to  have  to  take  your  money  out  of." 

Still  he  did  not  speak.  He  had  not  even 
turned  his  head  when  she  had  walked  to  the 
window. 


82  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  I  wonder  —  "  her  voice,  in  spite  of  her 
effort,  was  fast  getting  beyond  her  control  — 
"  I  wonder  if  there's  anything  —  anything  in 
the  world  —  that's  any  more  to  you  than  that, 
or  if  I'm  just  part  of  the  game.  Oh,"  she 
choked,  but  recovered  her  voice  and  went  on 
rapidly,  "you  didn't  want  to  tell  me  about  the 
Curtin  business.  Is  it  because  —  " 

He  rose  heavily  from  his  chair ;  and,  coming 
up  behind  her,  laid  his  hands  on  her  shoulders. 
"  Steady,"  he  said ;  "  you're  tired  to-night.  I 
hadn't  noticed  before,  but  you  must  be  rather 
played  out.  I  never  knew  you  to  break  this  way 
before.  What  you  need  is  a  good  rest.  You 
go  to  bed  now,  and  to-morrow,  when  you  feel 
better,  we'll  talk  about  going  away  somewhere 
where  you  can  rest  up." 

"  No,"  she  said  quickly,  facing  him,  "  I  don't 
want  to  go  away.  I'd  rather  see  it  out  here." 

With  an  effort,  which  he  did  not  at  all  appre- 
ciate, she  was  rapidly  regaining  control  of  her- 
self. When  next  she  spoke,  her  manner  was 
natural. 

"I'm  rather  fagged  to-night,"  she  admitted; 
"but  I'll  be  all  right  in  the  morning.  And  I 
had  been  worrying  over  your  not  telling  me 


Old  Friends  83 

about  —  that.  I've  been  acting  in  a  very  silly 
way  about  it.  Forget  it,  dear,  won't  you  ? " 

"  I  think  we'd  better  call  it  square,"  he  an- 
swered, smiling.  "  I  ought  to  have  told  you  all 
about  it.  I  don't  quite  know  why  I  didn't." 

He  went  upstairs  with  her ;  then,  leaving  her 
at  the  door,  came  down  to  finish  his  cigar. 

He  sat  there  a  long  time,  thinking.  Harriet's 
break,  as  he  called  it,  alarmed  him ;  largely,  it 
must  be  confessed,  on  his  own  account.  She 
was  the  only  companion  he  had ;  she  stimulated 
him  and  rested  him,  and,  what  was  most  impor- 
tant, she  appreciated  him.  The  delight  would 
be  gone  out  of  a  successful  campaign  if  she 
were  not  at  his  elbow  to  perceive  and  applaud 
and  suggest.  Yet  his  thoughts  were  not  wholly 
selfish.  Harriet  was  the  best  part  of  him ;  his 
affection  for  her  was  perhaps  induced  only  by 
her  strong  devotion  to  him,  but  whatever  its 
cause  and  its  limitations,  it  was  genuine.  But 
he  did  not  at  all  appreciate  how  serious  her 
condition  really  was,  and  he  soon  ceased  think- 
ing about  her  at  all. 

He  took  up  the  evening  paper,  and  after 
reflecting  a  long  while  over  the  commercial 
pages,  he  decided  that  lard  was  going  to  be 


84  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

a  lot  higher  in  the  next  few  months,  and  that 
he  would  buy  some  next  day.  Then  he  threw 
aside  the  paper,  and  his  mind  reverted  to  John 
Bagsbury.  In  telling  Harriet  that  he  did  not 
expect  ever  to  be  forced  into  a  fight  with  John, 
he  had  not  been  frank.  There  was,  indeed,  as 
yet  no  reason  for  anticipating  such  an  occur- 
rence ;  but  Sponley  was  intelligent  enough  to 
trust  his  intuitions,  and  he  felt  sure  that  sooner 
or  later  he  and  John  would  have  to  settle  the 
question  as  to  which  was  the  better  man. 

He  had  no  idea  when  the  struggle  would 
come  ;  he  would  have  been  greatly  surprised 
had  he  known  how  imminent  it  really  was ;  and 
he  could  form  no  guess  as  to  what  could  precipi- 
tate it.  But  he  knew  he  would  be  ready  for  it 
when  it  did  come,  and  at  the  thought  he  smiled 
in  genuine  artistic  anticipation.  John  Bagsbury 
was  a  worthy  antagonist.  Sponley  did  not  wish 
to  fight  him,  he  would  go  far  to  avoid  fighting 
him ;  but  if  it  should  come  to  that,  —  and  he 
knew  in  his  heart  it  would,  —  well,  the  fight 
would  be  worth  coming  a  long  way  to  see. 


CHAPTER  VI 

LARD 

"  Is  Mr.  Bagsbury  in  ?  " 

The  question  was  addressed  to  Jervis  Curtin, 
who  was  sitting  at  his  desk  just  outside  the 
private  office. 

"  I  think  so,"  he  answered.  "  Just  go  right 
through  into  the  inner  office.  I  fancy  you'll 
find  him  there." 

The  visitor  nodded,  and,  walking  through  the 
cashier's  private  office,  entered  John  Bagsbury's 
sanctum  and  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

"Who  is  he  ?  "  Curtin  asked  of  a  clerk  who 
happened  to  be  standing  near  his  desk. 

"  Don't  you  know  him  ?  That's  Pickering, 
William  George  Pickering,  the  soap  man. 
You've  heard  of  Pickering's  Diamond  Soap, 
haven't  you  ?  Well,  he's  the  man.  It's  pretty 
poor  soap,  I  guess,  but  he  got  the  scheme  of 
making  it  in  diamond-shaped  cakes,  and  it 
caught  right  on.  He's  richer'n  the  devil." 
85 


86  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

The  clerk  thought  Curtin  looked  interested, 
so  he  was  encouraged  to  continue  his  remarks. 

"  He  takes  a  whirl  at  the  market  every  now 
and  then,  too.  He  smashed  up  that  Smith  deal 
last  winter:  smashed  it  all  to  smithereens. 
Just  a  joke,"  he  added,  to  explain  the  fact  that 
he  had  giggled,  "Smith  —  smithereens.  But,  as 
I  was  saying,  Pickering's  a  corker.  He  just 
lays  low  and  doesn't  show  his  hand  until  —  " 

"Good  Lord!"  ejaculated  Curtin,  with  a 
laugh.  "  That's  enough.  I  don't  want  to  write 
his  biography." 

"  All  right,"  said  the  clerk,  "  I  just  came  over 
to  ask  you  if  I  should  enter  that  —  " 

"You'd  better  take  it  to  Mr.  Jackson  or  Mr. 
Peters,"  Curtin  interrupted  quickly.  "  I  haven't 
time  to  see  about  it  now." 

"  But  —  "  the  clerk  began. 

"  I've  got  to  meet  a  man,"  said  Curtin,  looking 
at  his  watch,  "in  exactly  three  minutes,  at  a 
place  just  five  and  a  half  squares  from  here,  so 
you'll  have  to  excuse  me,"  and  seizing  his  hat, 
he  fled. 

The  younger  man  stared  after  him  disap- 
provingly and  then  walked  back  toward  his 
own  place,  stopping  for  a  talk  with  one  of  his 


Lard  87 

fellow-clerks,  who  was  none  other  than  Jack 
Dorlin. 

"  That  man  Curtin  doesn't  know  a  damn 
thing,"  he  said.  "  I  can't  see,  if  Bagsbury  is  as 
good  a  banker  as  they  say  he  is,  why  he  doesn't 
get  on  to  it.  Any  man  who  knows  anything 
much  about  banking,  can  see  that  Curtin  isn't 
fit  for  his  job." 

Jack  stopped  his  pencil,  which  was  moving 
slowly  up  a  column  of  figures,  just  as  carefully 
as  though  he  had  not  lost  count  two  inches 
back.  "  I'll  tell  you  what,  Hillsmead,"  he  said 
to  the  clerk,  "  I  should  think  you'd  go  and 
speak  to  Mr.  Bagsbury  about  it." 

"  Oh,  that  wouldn't  do  at  all.  You  see,  it 
wouldn't  be  good  form,  in  the  first  place,  and 
then  I  don't  believe  he'd  see  it,  anyway.  But 
Curtin  is  certainly  no  good.  Why,  he'd  never 
heard  of  W.  G.  Pickering ! "  And  Jack  lis- 
tened with  what  gravity  he  could  command 
while  Hillsmead  repeated  the  recital  with  which 
he  just  favored  the  assistant  cashier,  until  the 
joke  about  Smith — with  the  explanation  — 
gave  him  excuse  to  laugh  immoderately.  Hills- 
mead  was  to  Jack  the  one  bright  spot  about 
the  bank. 


88  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Jervis  Curtin  was  not  exactly  popular  among 
the  employees  of  Bagsbury  and  Company.  No 
man  of  his  invincible  ignorance  about  banking, 
and  in  his  highly  salaried  position,  could  be 
popular  in  any  bank.  But  his  good-humored 
manner  saved  him  from  being  cordially  hated, 
and  made  it  possible  for  him  to  think  that  his 
associates  liked  him.  As  for  his  ignorance, 
that  did  not  trouble  him  at  all.  The  only  thing 
that  he  did  not  entirely  relish  was  his  relation 
to  Melville  Sponley.  Spying  is  at  best  not  an 
occupation  conducive  to  any  great  degree  of 
self-satisfaction,  and  unsuccessful  spying  is  still 
less  gratifying  to  one's  pride.  Months  had 
passed  since  Curtin  had  entered  the  bank,  and 
as  yet  he  had  been  able  to  tell  Sponley  noth- 
ing of  importance  which  the  speculator  had  not 
already  learned  directly  from  John. 

But  something  important  was  going  on  now 
in  the  private  office. 

"  Yes,"  John  was  saying ;  "  we'd  be  very 
glad  to  open  an  account  with  you." 

"I  suppose  you  understand,"  said  Pickering, 
slowly,  "that  at  one  time  or  another  I  shall 
want  to  borrow  a  good  deal  of  money." 

John    smiled.      "That's   why   I    want    your 


Lard  89 

business,"  he  said.  "  Good  loans  are  what 
I'm  looking  for.  This  bank's  in  good  shape. 
We'll  be  able  to  take  care  of  you  without  any 
trouble." 

"There  may  be  times,"  the  soap  manufac- 
turer went  on,  "  when  I  shall  want  a  big  chunk 
of  money  in  a  hurry.  Now,  I  believe  in  con- 
servative banking;  that's  why  I'm  coming  to 
you.  But  I  don't  want  anything  to  do  with 
the  kind  of  conservatism  that'll  leave  me  in 
the  lurch  without  any  warning  the  first  time  it 
comes  to  a  pinch.  That  was  the  trouble  over 
at  the  other  place.  They  got  scared  and  let  go 
of  me  once  in  a  rather  tight  place,  after  they'd 
told  me  that  they'd  see  me  through.  The  col- 
lateral I  offered  them  was  all  right,  but  they'd 
lost  their  nerve.  Stevenson  was  so  scared  he 
told  me  to  go  to  hell.  I  came  near  going,  too. 
I  got  out  all  right,  but  it  was  a  close  thing  — 
a  question  of  minutes." 

"  I  wouldn't  wreck  the  bank  for  the  sake  of 
backing  up  any  of  your  little  amusements," 
said  John.  "  I'd  sell  you  out  the  minute  I 
thought  it  necessary  to  save  the  bank  a  loss; 
and  if  I  thought  a  loan  was  bad,  I  wouldn't 
throw  good  money  after  it.  But  if  I  tell  you 


90  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

I'll  see  you  through,  I'll  do  it;  and  if  I  tell  you 
you  can  have  so  much  money  to-morrow,  you'll 
get  it  to-morrow,  no  matter  what's  happened 
over  night.  I'll  not  get  scared.  It's  a  crime 
for  a  banker  to  lose  his  nerve.  I'll  tell  you 
this,  though,"  he  added,  laughing,  "  I  wouldn't 
take  more  than  three  accounts  like  yours  for 
a  hundred  thousand  a  year  salary.  You're 
the  sort  of  fellows  that  make  a  banker's  head 
white."  He  had  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
trousers  pockets  and  slipped  far  down  in  his 
chair,  resting  his  head  against  the  back  of  it. 
"  I  guess  I  can  take  care  of  one  of  you  all 
right,  though,"  he  said. 

Pickering  looked  at  him  thoughtfully  a  mo- 
ment ;  then  he  said :  — 

"  I  guess  you  can.  We'll  get  on  together  first 
rate." 

John  straightened  up  in  his  chair  and  nodded. 
"We'll  call  it  settled,  then.  Do  you  want  to 
make  a  deposit  to-day?" 

"Yes,"  said  Pickering;  "I  want  it  fixed  up 
right  away.  I'll  deposit  a  hundred  thousand. 
I  want  a  loan,  too." 

"  A  big  one  ?  " 

Pickering  nodded.  "  Half  a  million,"  he  said 
calmly. 


Lard  91 

"  Yes,"  said  John,  with  a  dry  laugh,  "  that  is 
big.  It  needs  a  little  thinking  over." 

He  leaned  over  his  desk,  scowling,  picked 
up  a  pencil  and  made  a  few  figures  on  a  bit  of 
scratch  paper.  Then  he  said  :  — 

"Well,  I  can  do  it.  If  you've  the  right  sort 
of  collateral,  I'll  let  you  have  it." 

"  Oh,  the  collateral's  good :  best  kind ;  it's 
lard." 

John  glanced  at  him  sharply.  "  So,  that's 
the  story,  is  it  ?  Lard,  eh !  Well,  lard's  good 
collateral  if  you've  got  enough  of  it." 

"  I've  got  enough,"  said  Pickering,  laughing. 
"  Plenty.  How  much  of  a  margin  do  you 
want  ? " 

"  Fifty  per  cent." 

"  You  are  cautious,"  said  Pickering.  "  Of 
course,  lard's  high  now,  but  just  remember  that 
it's  scarce.  The  normal  price  of  it  is  certainly 
a  good  deal  more  than  half  the  present  market 
price." 

"  I  suppose  so  —  but  here's  the  point.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  all  that  stuff?  You 
can't  make  soap  out  of  it.  Normal  price ! 
You  can't  talk  about  a  normal  price  when 
you're  manipulating  the  market.  When  a  cor- 


92  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

ner's  nearly  made  and  then  busted  —  well,  I  want 
to  be  a  long  way  on  the  safe  side.  That's  just 
the  time  when  it  pays  a  bank  to  be  cautious." 

"You're  all  right,  from  your  point  of  view, 
at  least,"  said  the  soap  manufacturer,  "and  I 
want  that  half  million,  so  I'll  put  up  enough 
lard  to  cover  it.  It's  worth  about  twenty-four 
dollars  a  tierce  to-day,  and  you  say  you  lend  me 
twelve  on  it.  As  I  figure  it  then,"  he  paused 
for  a  rough  calculation,  "  you  want  about  forty 
thousand  tierces." 

"Yes,"  said  John  a  moment  later,  "that'll 
do.  You  can  make  out  a  note  right  here  and 
send  round  the  collateral  in  the  morning." 

"  Oh,  I've  got  it  with  me.  I  didn't  want  to 
waste  any  time,"  and  Pickering  took  from  his 
pocket  warehouse  receipts  for  the  lard,  and  made 
them  over  to  Bagsbury  and  Company.  Then 
he  filled  out  the  blank-note  form  which  John 
handed  him. 

John  took  the  warehouse  receipts  and  looked 
at  them  curiously.  "That's  an  awful  lot  of 
lard.  Here's  twelve  million  pounds  right  here." 

"  I've  got  more  than  that,"  said  Pickering,  as 
he  signed  the  note,  "  and  I've  been  shipping  it 
out  of  the  city  for  two  months." 


Lard  93 

"  I  don't  see  how  the  devil  you've  managed  to 
do  it  so  quietly.  Of  course  everybody's  won- 
dered more  or  less  about  it,  but  nobody's  really 
known  a  thing.  You've  covered  your  tracks 
mighty  well." 

"  That  suggests  something  I  want  to  speak 
about,"  Pickering  spoke  slowly.  He  seemed  to 
be  feeling  for  his  words.  "  This  will  all  come 
out  before  so  very  long,  I  suppose ;  everybody'll 
catch  on  to  what's  happening,  and  act  accord- 
ingly ;  but  I  don't  want  that  to  happen  any 
sooner  than  I  can  help.  Of  course,  I  can  trust 
to  your  discretion,  and  I  wouldn't  speak  of 
this  if  it  weren't  that  there  are  one  or  two  of 
your  directors  —  one  in  particular  —  that  I'd 
much  rather  didn't  know  anything  about  this 
loan." 

"  I'll  not  speak  of  it  to  anybody,"  John  said 
briefly.  "  Do  you  know  our  cashier,  Mr.  Jack- 
son ?  Come  out  here  and  I'll  introduce  you  to 
him;  he'll  attend  to  your  deposit.  I'll  leave 
you  in  his  hands  and  ask  you  to  excuse  me. 
I've  an  engagement." 

John's  engagement  was  not  an  important  one 
—  simply  to  lunch  with  himself.  What  he  ate 
was  never  a  matter  of  interest  to  him,  and  this 


94  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

noon  they  might  have  brought  him  anything, 
for  his  mind  was  absorbed  in  lard. 

The  hog  is  an  uninteresting  beast.  His  way 
of  life  is  monotonous  and  restricted ;  he  has 
but  one  ambition,  which  in  nearly  all  cases  is 
satisfied.  There  is  no  individuality  about  him  ; 
no  interesting  variation  from  the  normal  to  attract 
our  studious  attention.  But  when,  by  a  swift 
and  highly  ingenious  metamorphosis,  he  ceases 
to  be  Hog,  and  becomes  Provisions,  he  assumes 
a  national  importance  ;  his  fluctuations  become 
fascinating,  romantic.  Over  him  is  fought  many 
a  fierce  battle ;  he  builds  fortunes  for  some  men, 
and  others  are  brought  to  irretrievable  ruin  from 
yielding  to  his  alluring  seductions. 

It  was  evident  to  John  that  Pickering  was 
trying  to  run  a  corner  in  lard ;  in  other  words, 
that  he  meant  to  buy  all  of  that  commodity  that 
could  be  delivered  to  him,  and  a  great  deal 
more;  then,  being  in  command  of  the  market, 
he  would  put  up  the  price  as  high  as  he  chose, 
and  make  enough  profit  from  the  non-existent, 
and  hence  undeliverable,  surplus  to  more  than 
defray  the  expense  of  disposing  of  the  lard  he 
actually  possessed,  or  as  the  vernacular  inele- 
gantly puts  it,  burying  the  corpse. 


Lard  95 

The  morality  of  this  sort  of  operation  must 
not  be  scrutinized  too  closely.  Commercially 
it  is  "  all  right."  A  man  who  only  just  fails  to 
get  a  corner  —  and  get  out  of  it  —  may  even 
get  a  little  sympathy  from  his  fellows.  A  man 
who  succeeds  is  sure  of  unbounded  admiration. 

The  commercial  sort  of  morality  is  all  that 
a  banker  has  a  right  to  expect  from  his  cus- 
tomers, and  that  was  not  the  phase  of  the  ques- 
tion which  interested  John.  He  was  wondering 
whether  Pickering  would  succeed.  Cornering 
a  market  is  at  best  a  desperate  operation ;  the 
chances  lie  heavily  on  the  side  of  failure.  It  is 
daring,  splendid,  Napoleonic ;  it  makes  capital 
reading  in  the  daily  papers,  and  affords  the 
outsiders  a  chance  to  win  a  little  and  to  lose 
a  great  deal  of  money;  but  bankers  regard  it 
with  suspicion. 

However,  Pickering  might  win.  Everything 
that  one  could  foresee  was  in  his  favor.  The 
stock  of  lard  was  small,  —  there  had  been  a 
short  corn  crop  two  years  before,  —  and  he  had 
succeeded  in  buying  a  large  part  of  what  there 
was  of  it  without  attracting  attention.  Nobody 
seemed  to  think  of  a  corner.  Most  of  all  in  his 
favor  was  the  man  himself.  His  skill  was  the 


96  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

growth  of  years  of  experience,  his  resources  were 
immense,  and  his  nerve  would  never  fail.  Yes, 
he  might  win. 

When  John  came  back  to  the  bank,  he  found 
Melville  Sponley  talking  to  Curtin.  Had  he 
entered  just  a  second  sooner,  he  would  have 
heard  Curtin  say,  — 

"A  fellow  named  Pickering  — " 

But  as  it  happened,  when  he  came  in  earshot, 
Sponley  was  talking,  — 

"  It's  just  a  quiet  little  place,  but  you  can  sit 
over  your  coffee  and  cigars  as  long  as  you  like 
and  nobody  hurries  you.  I  generally  go  there  — 
Hello!" 

"  What  place  is  this  ? "  John  asked,  coming 
up. 

"  The  place  I  want  you  to  go  to  with  me  for 
lunch  to-day." 

"  Oh,  you're  too  late,"  said  John.  "  I've  just 
been." 

"You're  the  worst  victim  of  the  early  hour 
habit  I  know,"  Sponley  exclaimed,  with  feigned 
impatience.  "  I  thought  I'd  come  early  enough 
to  catch  you.  I  suppose  you  breakfasted  to-day 
at  seven  and  will  dine  at  six." 

John   laughed.     "I'm  getting  to  be  an  old 


Lard  97 

dog,"  he  said.  "You've  got  to  expect  me  to 
keep  at  my  old  tricks.  Come  in  here  and  sit 
down.  You  won't  want  your  lunch  for  an  hour 
yet." 

He  followed  Sponley  into  the  office  and  sat 
down  before  his  desk.  His  eyes  rested  on  it 
a  moment  and  he  scowled. 

"  That  old  thing  irritates  me,"  he  said.  "  It's 
always  dirty.  The  cracks  and  filigree  stuff 
on  the  thing  would  defy  the  best-intentioned 
office  boy  in  the  world." 

"  It's  symbolic,"  said  Sponley,  laughing. 
"  It's  the  exact  type  of  the  ancient  regime  of 
Bagsbury  and  Company.  All  the  rest  of  the 
furniture  of  the  bank  is  of  the  same  kind." 

"  I  don't  dare  change  it,"  John  continued. 
"  I  don't  suppose  the  majority  of  my  father's 
old  customers  would  know  whether  my  loans 
were  secured  with  government  bonds  or  shares 
in  Suburban  Improvement  Companies ;  but  if 
I  should  pack  all  this  old  lumber  off  to  the 
second-hand  shop,  they'd  think  I  was  just  tak- 
ing the  whole  bank  straight  to  the  devil.  It 
belonged  here  in  father's  day,  but  it's  nothing 
now  but  a  great  big  bluff.  I  hate  to  be  forced 
to  keep  up  false  appearances.  Perhaps  if  I 


98  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

hadn't  changed  the  policy,  I  would  have  dared 
to  experiment  on  the  furniture." 

He  unlocked  the  desk  and  lifted  the  heavy 
cover.  The  warehouse  receipts  which  Picker- 
ing had  given  him  lay  there  in  full  view.  As 
he  picked  them  up  deliberately  and  laid  them 
in  a  drawer,  it  occurred  to  him  that  Melville 
Sponley  was  the  one  man  connected  with  the 
bank  who  should  be  kept  in  ignorance  of  the 
loan  to  Pickering,  let  alone  the  nature  of 
the  collateral  that  secured  it.  He  could  not 
be  sure  whether  Sponley  had  seen  the  receipts 
or  not 

"  How's  Harriet  these  days  ? " 

"Pretty  well,"  was  the  answer.  "That  is, 
most  of  the  time  she  seems  perfectly  well. 
She  certainly  looks  all  right,  only  once  in  a 
while  she'll  get  all  worked  up  over  some  little 
thing.  It  never  happens  when  anything's 
going  on  that  interests  her;  but  when  she's 
home  by  herself  all  day,  and  there  hasn't  been 
anything  to  keep  her  occupied,  she'll  be  as 
nervous  as  a  cat.  I  think  that's  all  the  trouble : 
she  likes  things  that  are  exciting,  and  when 
there  isn't  anything,  she  gets  bored.  Now 
last  night  we  had  some  people  over  to  dinner — 


Lard  99 

first  time  we've  had  anybody  but  you  and 
Alice  for  a  long  while,  and  she  was  just  as 
she  used  to  be  twenty  years  ago,  not  a  day 
older." 

There  was  a  pause  while  John  nodded 
reflectively,  then  Sponley  asked, — 

"  How's  everything  going  here  at  the  bank  ?  " 

"Just  the  same,"  John  answered,  "and  that 
means  thundering  good.  Deposits  keep  com- 
ing right  up.  They're  nearly  twice  what  they 
were  when  we  took  hold.  Next  quarter  we'll 
pay  the  first  dividend  in  the  history  of  the 
bank  that  anywhere  near  represents  the  work- 
ing value  of  the  capital  invested." 

He  paused  and  shook  his  head  impatiently. 
"  I  don't  suppose  it  will  do  us  any  good,  though. 
If  those  old  fossils  get  a  big  dividend,  they'll 
think  it  means  reckless  banking.  Lord!  but 
I'm  sick  of  their  mummified  ideas.  If  I  can 
ever  get  hold  of  my  stock  — " 

"  I  think  you  will  before  the  year's  out," 
Sponley  interrupted.  "  I  think  your  trustees 
will  turn  the  whole  business  over  to  you,  not 
formally,  perhaps,  but  at  least  will  give  you  a 
free  hand,  to  do  about  what  you  please," 

"  What  makes  you  think  so  ? " 


ioo  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Why,  you  see,  it's  never  been  you  as  much 
as  the  company  you've  kept,  that  bothered 
your  father  and  the  other  old  fellows,  and 
I've  had  the  honor  to  be  the  one  they  objected 
to  most.  I  never  could  do  anything  with 
Moffat ;  but  I've  put  in  my  odd  moments  ever 
since  the  first  of  the  year  in  convincing  Cart- 
wright  and  Meredith  that  I'm  all  right.  If 
they  once  believe  that,  it'll  take  away  their 
only  objection  to  you." 

"This  is  the  first  I've  heard  of  that  move," 
said  John. 

"I  haven't  mentioned  it  because  at  first  I 
was  so  confounded  unsuccessful  that  I  hated 
to  own  up  how  badly  I'd  been  beat.  They 
were  prickly  as  the  very  devil  at  first.  And 
then  when  they  commenced  to  come  round, 
I  thought  I'd  wait  until  I  had  them  all  done 
up  in  a  neat  parcel  and  hand  them  over  to 
you  as  a  sort  of  Christmas  present.  They 
and  their  wives  were  the  people  we  had  to 
dinner  last  night.  I  tell  you,  Harriet  was  the 
trump  card  of  the  whole  hand.  She  swung 
them  nearer  into  line  in  two  hours  than  I  had 
done  in  two  months.  I  think  that  we've  just 
about  landed  them.  Of  course,  they're  only 


Lard  101 

two  out  of  the  three,  but  still  that  means  some- 
thing." 

Next  to  John's  capacity  for  perfectly  calm, 
impersonal  judgment,  the  most  valuable  thing 
in  his  commercial  equipment  was  a  sort  of 
intuitive  grasp  of  a  situation,  an  ability  instantly 
to  correlate  scattered  circumstances  without 
waiting  for  the  mind's  slower,  logical  processes. 
In  other  words,  he  possessed  the  same  sort 
of  creative  imagination  that  characterizes  great 
generals.  Before  Sponley  had  fairly  finished 
speaking,  he  had  fully  comprehended  the  stra- 
tegic possibilities  of  the  speculator's  ground. 
Supposing  that  Sponley  were  working  in  his 
own  interests,  John  knew  exactly  the  strength 
and  the  limitations  of  Sponley's  position.  And 
in  the  same  instant  he  took  the  decision  that 
the  man  he  had  known  intimately  for  twenty 
years  would  bear  watching.  He  went  no 
further  than  that.  He  did  not  jump  to  the 
conclusion  that  his  friend  meant  to  betray  him. 
But  the  knowledge  that  Sponley  might,  if  he 
chose,  take  advantage  of  his  hold  on  the  two 
old  trustees,  made  him  alert. 

Sponley  got  slowly  to  his  feet.  "  I'm  ready 
for  my  lunch,"  he  said.  "  You  don't  happen  to 
want  another,  do  you  ? " 


IO2  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  No,"  said  John,  "  and  I've  got  a  big  after- 
noon's work  ahead,  even  if  I  did." 

"Nothing  especially  new  has  turned  up 
to-day,  I  suppose  ?  " 

John  shook  his  head. 

"  Well,  come  round  and  see  us  when  you  can 
get  time.  Good-by." 

As  Sponley  left  the  room,  he  thought : 
"There's  something  in  that  Pickering  busi- 
ness. If  there  hadn't  been,  he'd  have  men- 
tioned it." 

When  he  passed  Curtin's  desk,  he  spoke  to 
him :  — 

"Going  to  be  home  to-night?  I'm  coming 
round  to  see  you." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    SPY 

NEXT  morning  Bagsbury's  bank  had  a  joke, 
that  is,  the  younger  and  less  serious  employees 
thought  they  had  a  joke,  —  Curtin  had  come 
down  early.  Ridiculously  early,  too ;  not  only 
before  his  own  hour,  which  was  any  time  in  the 
middle  of  the  morning,  but  before  John  Bags- 
bury  himself  appeared,  or  Jackson,  the  cashier. 
There  was  no  visible  press  of  work  which 
seemed  to  demand  Curtin' s  attention,  for  he 
stood  about  in  a  lost  way,  apparently  unable  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  do  anything.  Every  one 
who  passed  Jack  Dorlin's  desk  paused  to  make 
jocular  speculations,  principally  to  the  effect 
that  Curtin's  alarm  clock  must  have  gone  wrong. 
Curtin  with  an  alarm  clock  ! 

But  Jack  Dorlin  found  it  hard  to  enjoy  the 
joke ;  he  could  not  satisfactorily  convince  him- 
self that  it  was  a  joke  at  all.  Neither  he  nor 
Dick  had  ever  told  John  Bagsbury  that  Sponley 
103 


IO4  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

had  lied  in  saying  that  he  did  not  know  Jer- 
vis  Curtin,  though  now,  after  six  months,  the 
lie  still  troubled  them.  Throughout  the  game 
which  they  knew  was  being  played  about  the 
bank  both  of  them  were  handicapped  by  a  lack 
of  familiarity  with  the  rules.  It  was  like  noth- 
ing else  in  their  experience.  Up  to  within  a 
year  they  had  never  met  any  one  who  was  an 
expert  at  skating  over  the  ice  of  the  law  where 
it  was  thin.  The  exact  knowledge  which  en- 
ables men  to  avoid  by  the  merest  fraction  the 
breaking  of  this  law,  which  must  on  no  account 
be  broken,  and  encourages  them  to  defy  this 
other  law  with  impunity,  this  classified  knowl- 
edge was  a  science  of  whose  very  existence 
they  had  never  been  made  aware.  To  their 
minds  such  things  as  conspiracies  and  spies  and 
betrayals  were  things  which  occurred  only  in  a 
certain  sort  of  novel  which  they  seldom  read. 
They  could  not  think  of  a  real  detective  without 
a  smile.  They  heartily  distrusted  Sponley,  and 
they  suspected  Curtin,  but  they  could  not  specu- 
late upon  the  possible  relation  between  these  two 
without  feeling  rather  foolish.  They  decided 
again  and  again  that  it  was  nothing,  but  just  as 
often  they  again  began  wondering  what  it  was. 


The  Spy  105 

And  the  fear  of  making  themselves  ridiculous 
kept  them  of  speaking  of  it  to  John. 

Jack's  distrust  of  Curtin  was  not  nearly  as 
strong  as  it  had  been  when  he  entered  the 
bank.  This  was  not  so  much  because  he 
seemed  a  good-humored,  easy-going  fellow,  — 
Jack  could  take  that  cordial  manner  for  just 
about  what  it  was  worth,  —  but  because  he  be- 
lieved that  Curtin's  ignorance  and  utter  unim- 
portance in  the  bank  reduced  his  capacity  for 
rascality  to  almost  nothing.  But  Jack's  suspi- 
cions never  more  than  slept,  and  any  unusual 
act  of  Curtin's,  no  matter  how  innocent  it 
might  look,  was  enough  to  waken  them. 

Jack  had  been  promoted  to  the  remittance 
ledgers ;  his  desk  stood  at  the  rear  end  of  an 
aisle  which  ran  nearly  the  length  of  the  room, 
behind  the  rank  of  tellers'  cages  and  in  front  of 
the  vaults.  At  the  other  end  of  the  aisle  was 
the  door  which  opened  on  the  two  private 
offices.  Just  before  this  door  stood  a  large 
chest  of  drawers  where  was  kept  a  large  part 
of  the  bank's  collateral  securities.  This  chest 
was,  of  course,  directly  in  Jack  Dorlin's  line  of 
vision,  and  when,  a  few  minutes  after  Curtin's 
arrival,  he  raised  his  eyes  from  his  work,  he  saw 


106  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

the  assistant  cashier  searching  busily  through 
one  of  the  drawers.  That  was  nothing,  and 
his  eyes  fell  to  his  work  again,  but  when  he 
glanced  up,  Curtin  was  still  there.  Fifteen 
—  twenty  minutes  passed ;  Curtin  was  going 
through  that  chest  systematically  from  top  to 
bottom. 

Jack  flung  down  his  pencil  impatiently,  for 
again  he  had  caught  himself  in  the  act  of  specu- 
lating on  the  old  theme,  on  Curtin's  motives. 
There  was  no  possible  reason  why  Curtin 
shouldn't  look  over  the  collateral  if  he  chose ; 
there  might  be  some  excellent  reason  why  he 
should.  But  then,  why  had  he  come  early  ? 
Why  didn't  he  set  some  one  else  to  finding 
what  he  wanted?  Why  could  he  not  wait 
until  Jackson  came  down  ?  Jackson  knew 
everything  there  was  in  that  chest. 

At  that  moment  Hillsmead  walked  past  his 
desk,  and  Jack  grinned  to  see  him  making 
straight  for  Curtin.  They  talked  but  a  mo- 
ment, and  Curtin  walked  away  to  his  own  desk, 
while  Hillsmead  retraced  is  steps  toward  the  rear 
of  the  bank.  He  stopped  to  say  to  Jack :  — 

"  That  man's  a  regular  fool.  He's  been  look- 
ing in  that  collateral  box  for  half  an  hour ;  but 


The  Spy  107 

when  I  asked  him  if  I  could  help  him  find  any- 
thing he  was  looking  for,  he  said  he  was  just 
as  much  obliged,  but  he'd  found  it,  and  then 
he  went  away.  I'd  like  to  know  what  he  was 
looking  for." 

"  Postage-stamps,  maybe,"  Jack  suggested. 

"  Oh,  no,  he  wouldn't  look  there  for  postage- 
stamps.  They  don't  keep  anything  but  collat- 
eral in  that  box.  When  he  wants  to  mail  things, 
he  just  gives  'em  to  an  office  boy." 

Jack  often  wished  that  he  had  enough  leisure 
during  the  day  to  enjoy  Hillsmead  properly. 
He  used  to  chuckle  over  him  in  the  evening, 
and  quote  him  to  Dick ;  but  then  there  were 
other  things  to  think  about  in  the  evening. 

It  was  growing  late  that  same  afternoon,  long 
after  closing  time,  and  concentration  on  columns 
of  figures  was  becoming  difficult,  when  Jack, 
glancing  up,  saw  the  cashier  come  out  of  the 
office  with  his  street  coat  on,  which  meant  that 
he  was  going  home.  Then  a  few  minutes  later 
he  saw  John  Bagsbury  follow  him,  and  he  wished 
his  own  work  was  done  so  that  he  could  go,  too  — 
just  where  John  Bagsbury  was  going,  and  have 
an  hour  with  Dick  before  dinner  time.  He  sat 
there  in  a  brown  study  until  recalled  to  him- 


io8  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

self  by  seeing  Curtin  go  through  the  doorway 
into  the  outer  private  office  and  then,  turning  to 
the  right,  enter  John  Bagsbury's  room. 

"  Go  in  there,  if  you  like,"  he  said  to  himself, 
apostrophizing  the  assistant  cashier ;  "  go  and 
stay  as  long  as  you  please  and  steal  the  furni- 
ture; I'm  tired  of  watching  you."  But  in  spite 
of  himself,  he  did  watch.  Again  and  again  he 
forced  himself  back  to  his  work,  but  he  was 
aware  all  the  while  that  Jervis  Curtin  had  not 
yet  come  out  of  that  door.  And  after  half  an 
hour  in  which  he  did  about  ten  minutes'  work, 
he  gave  up  trying,  and  slipping  from  his  high 
stool  he  walked  slowly  toward  the  door  at  the 
other  end  of  the  aisle. 

When  John  Bagsbury  had  come  in  from  lunch 
the  day  before,  he  had  interrupted  Curtin  before 
he  had  told  Sponley  anything  beyond  the  fact 
of  Pickering's  visit  to  the  bank.  Acting  on  the 
hint  Sponley  had  given  him,  Curtin  at  once  set 
about  to  find  out  what  was  the  nature  of  Picker- 
ing's business  with  the  bank.  It  was  a  simple 
matter  for  an  officer  in  his  position  to  discover 
that  Pickering  had  made  a  deposit  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  and  had  given  his  note 


The  Spy  109 

for  an  additional  five  hundred  thousand.  That 
was  complete  enough  information  for  anybody 
so  far  as  Curtin  could  see,  and  he  had  given  it 
to  Sponley  when  the  speculator  came  to  see  him 
that  evening,  with  a  good  deal  of  self -congratula- 
tion upon  his  success.  But  Sponley  was  far  from 
satisfied. 

"What  collateral  did  he  put  up?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"  None,  I  suppose.  His  note  does  not  men- 
tion any  collateral.  It  isn't  made  out  on  the 
sort  of  form  we  use  when  we  take  collateral." 

"That  doesn't  mean  anything  except  that 
Bagsbury  doesn't  want  anybody  to  know  what 
kind  of  security  it  was.  That's  what  I  want 
you  to  find  out  for  me." 

"  I  don't  see  how  I'm  going  to  do  it,"  Curtin 
remonstrated.  "  If  he's  gone  to  all  that  trouble 
to  keep  us  from  finding  out,  it  isn't  likely  that 
he's  left  it  around  where  anybody  can  see  it. 
Probably  it's  not  with  the  other  collateral  at 
all." 

"  Probably  not,"  Sponley  assented. 

"It's  ten  to  one,"  the  other  continued,  "that 
he's  put  it  somewhere  among  his  private 
papers." 


HO  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"Well,"  said  Sponley,  "doesn't  that  simplify 
matters  ? " 

Curtin  glanced  at  him,  then  smiled  uneasily 
in  reply. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  Only  that  if  you  know  where  a  thing  is 
likely  to  be,  you  stand  a  fair  chance  of  finding 
it  by  looking  there." 

Curtin  was  frightened,  and  he  laughed. 

"  On  the  other  hand,"  he  said,  "  if  one  can't 
look  there,  he's  not  so  likely  to  find  it." 

"  Why  can't  you  ? "  Sponley  asked  quickly. 
"  You  know  where  he  keeps  his  private  papers, 
don't  you  ? " 

Curtin  answered  coolly.  Everything  the  man 
did  was  something  of  a  pose.  He  posed  to 
himself.  Just  now  he  really  believed  that  he 
was  cool. 

"  If  that  suggestion  is  made  as  a  jest,"  he 
said,  "it  seems  to  me  rather  unprofitable.  If 
you  mean  it  seriously,  it's  an  insult." 

"  It's  neither  a  jest  nor  an  insult,"  said  Spon- 
ley. "  It's  business.  Of  course,  if  you're  squeam- 
ish about  looking  through  a  file  of  papers  marked 
'private,'  you  can  look  through  the  other  collat- 
eral first.  You  may  find  what  you  want  there ; 


The  Spy  ill 

but  if  you  don't,  I  guess  you'll  have  to  see  the 
job  through." 

"  That's  ridiculous.  It's  not  to  be  considered 
for  a  moment.  There's  no  good  talking  any 
further  about  it." 

"  It  won't  be  so  difficult  as  it  sounds,"  Spon- 
ley  continued  evenly.  "  Bagsbury  keeps  all  that 
sort  of  thing  in  the  cabinet  that  stands  in  his 
office  all  day.  It's  never  locked.  They  take  it 
into  one  of  the  vaults  just  before  they  lock  up 
at  night,  but  you'll  have  nearly  an  hour  after 
he's  gone  home  when  the  way  will  be  clear. 
It'll  take  a  little  management,  but  it  won't  be 
difficult." 

"  Look  here,"  said  Curtin,  "  I  will  not  hear 
any  more.  You've  said  rather  too  much  as  it 
is.  What  you  suggest  is  outrageously,  infer- 
nally insulting,  and  —  " 

"  There's  no  use  in  talking  big,"  Sponley  cut 
in.  "  The  job  may  be  unpleasant,  but  you've 
got  to  do  it." 

"  I  won't  do  it,"  Curtin  almost  shouted.  Then 
more  quietly :  "  If  your  own  delicate  sense  of 
honor  doesn't  tell  you  that  it's  an  insult  to  a 
gentleman  to  ask  him  to  sneak  and  spy  or  per- 
haps crack  a  safe,  why,  you'll  have  to  take  my 


112  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

word  for  it.  But  I  don't  want  anything  more 
to  do  with  you.  I  won't  stay  in  a  position 
where  I'm  liable  to  that  sort  of  damned  inso- 
lence. You'd  better  leave  my  house  at  once. 
Do  you  understand  me  ? " 

Sponley  laughed.  The  opportunity  with  such 
a  man  comes  when  the  pendulum  has  swung 
back,  when  the  brave,  hot  wrath  has  burned 
out  of  him.  Sponley  did  not  try  to  pacify  Cur- 
tin.  Curtin  wished  to  be  angry,  did  he  ?  Well, 
he  should  be-just  as  angry  as  he  pleased. 

"  If  you  choose  to  call  yourself  a  spy,  nobody 
will  take  the  trouble  to  deny  it,"  he  said ;  "  but 
you  don't  gain  anything  by  it.  You  must  un- 
derstand that  this  is  exactly  what  I  hired  you 
for;  not  at  all  to  be  assistant  cashier  at  the 
bank.  You  are  in  my  employ ;  I  may  tell  you 
to  crack  a  safe  for  me  sometime,  and  when  I 
do,  you'll  do  it." 

"  I  may  have  been  in  your  employ,  as  you 
say,  up  to  five  minutes  ago,  but  I'm  not  now. 
Is  that  clear?  You've  made  a  mistake,  that's 
all.  You've  hired  the  wrong  kind  of  man." 

"  I  think  not,"  said  Sponley,  smiling ;  "you  are 
just  the  right  kind  of  a  man.  You  see,  you're 
not  exactly  independent.  You've  been  spend- 


The  Spy  113 

ing  a  good  deal  of  money  lately;  Mrs.  Curtin 
has  entertained  a  good  deal  —  " 

"You  damned  impertinent  —  " 

"  Ah  !  there  you  make  your  mistake.  That 
is  the  only  thing  that  is  really  pertinent  at  all. 
It's  just  a  question  of  money." 

Curtin  grinned ;  he  was  trying  to  adopt  Spon- 
ley's  tactics.  "  It  seems  to  me,"  he  said  (why 
would  not  the  words  come  evenly  ?),  "  it  seems 
to  me  that  there  I  have  as  good  a  hold  on  you 
as  you  have  on  me.  Your  part  in  this  business 
will  hardly  bear  daylight." 

"I'm  no  such  blunderer  as  that,"  answered 
Sponley,  tolerantly.  "  This  is  what  will  happen. 
I  will  tell  Bagsbury  that  I  have  bought  your 
stock,  and  then,  since  you  are  really  grossly 
incompetent  as  assistant  cashier,  at  the  next 
directors'  meeting  we  will  act  on  your  resigna- 
tion. And  you  can  see  what  will  happen  after 
that.  You  owe  me  alone  enough  money  to 
make  a  rather  fine  smash,  and  you  have  other 
creditors  besides.  You  can  console  yourself  by 
telling  John  Bagsbury  any  fanciful  yarn  you 
can  think  of  about  me." 

One  could  hardly  say  that  Curtin  listened, 
though  he  heard.  He  sat  gripping  the  arms  of 


114  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

his  chair  and  stared.  Sponley  looked  at  him 
keenly.  He  could  read  the  thoughts,  though 
the  blank  face  afforded  no  index. 

"  You  see,"  he  went  on,  "  you're  not  the  sort 
to  take  poverty  easily.  When  a  fellow  like  me 
or  John  Bagsbury  goes  broke,  his  case  isn't 
hopeless  at  all.  We're  used  to  making  money, 
and  we  know  how  to  take  care  of  ourselves. 
We  can  do  it,  even  if  we  do  have  to  start  back 
at  the  beginning.  But  you're  different.  You've 
never  been  able  to  earn  any  money.  Your 
father  took  care  of  you  at  first,  and  then  he  left 
you  his  property,  and  your  friends  took  care  of 
that  for  you,  and  you  and  they  have  got  rid  of 
most  of  it.  When  a  fellow  like  you  has  hard 
luck  and  gets  smashed,  he  comes  down  after  a 
while  to  hanging  round  his  former  friends,  try- 
ing to  beg  the  price  of  a  drink." 

Curtin  was  trying  to  speak,  but  his  shaking 
lips  would  not  obey  him.  He  rose  from  his 
chair  and  stood  facing  his  persecutor. 

"All  right,"  he  said  at  last.  "All  right. 
You  can  do  all  you  say  you  will.  You  can  bust 
me  up;  but  I'd  rather  have  that  than  the 
other.  I'd  rather  have  that  than  sell  my  soul 
to  you.  That's  what  you  want.  But,  by  God, 
you  won't  get  it ! " 


The  Spy  115 

He  began  pacing  the  room,  now  swiftly,  now 
slowly;  Sponley  sat  still  and  watched  him  in 
silence  for  a  moment.  Then  he  asked :  — 

"  Do  you  mind  if  I  smoke  ?    I  want  to  think." 

Curtin  nodded,  without  pausing  in  his  nervous 
walk. 

Sponley  sat  perfectly  still.  His  gross  body 
completely  filled  the  wide  arm-chair ;  there  was 
something  uncanny  about  his  complete  repose. 
You  could  as  easily  conceive  of  his  receding 
from  a  position  he  had  once  taken,  or  relenting 
toward  one  who  was  in  his  power,  as  of  a  fat 
Indian  idol's  answering  a  prayer  for  mercy. 
He  did  not  look  at  Curtin,  he  only  smoked  and 
waited. 

As  for  Curtin,  he  had  made  his  brave  speech. 
He  had  resisted  temptation,  and  the  glow  of 
virtuous  indignation  and  righteous  resolve  was 
fast  turning  to  cold  ashes. 

And  the  minutes  crept  away  till  the  big  hand 
of  the  clock  had  made  half  its  journey  before 
Sponley  spoke. 

"Sit  down  a  minute,  Curtin,  and  we'll  talk 
this  thing  over.  We've  both  got  excited,  and 
we've  both  talked  big,  and  we've  both  pretty 
generally  made  fools  of  ourselves.  That's  fun 


n6  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

enough  while  it  lasts ;  but  when  a  fellow  wakes 
up  the  next  morning  and  has  to  face  the  conse- 
quences, he  feels  rather  silly.  If  we  don't  man- 
age to  hang  together  some  way,  why,  I'll  be  in 
an  awkward  fix,  and  you'll  be  busted,  and  we'll 
both  wish  we'd  shown  a  little  sense.  Now  I 
don't  ask  you  to  do  anything  that  I  wouldn't  do 
myself,  and  I  never  will  ask  you  to.  I  don't 
ask  you  to  meddle  with  John  Bagsbury's  private 
papers.  This  is  a  matter  that  concerns  the 
bank,  and  you  and  I  are  as  much  a  part  of  it  as 
he  is.  But  we'll  leave  it  this  way :  if  you  can 
find  out  what  collateral  it  was  that  Pickering 
put  up,  why,  it  will  help  us  both  out.  And  if 
you  can't  —  well,  we'll  talk  about  that  later. 
Don't  say  anything  about  it  now.  Take  time 
to  think  it  over.  Good  night." 

That  was  the  reason  why  Curtin  had  puzzled 
the  clerks  by  looking  so  thoroughly  through  the 
collateral  box  next  morning.  And  now,  for  half 
an  hour,  he  had  searched  drawer  after  drawer  in 
the  little  oak  cabinet  in  John  Bagsbury's  private 
office.  At  first  he  listened  intently  for  footsteps, 
but  soon  his  quest  became  absorbing. 

Finally  it  was   rewarded.     There   were   the 


The  Spy  117 

yellow  warehouse  certificates.  Lard!  Forty 
thousand  tierces ! 

And  then  the  half-shut  door  behind  him 
creaked  as  some  one  pushed  it  open.  It  was 
numbness  rather  than  self-control  that  kept  him 
still.  Jack  spoke,  — 

"  I  beg  your  pardon." 

The  sound  of  the  voice,  the  voice  which  was 
not  John  Bagsbury's,  restored  Curtin  to  himself. 
He  looked  up. 

"  Ah,  Mr.  Dorlin !  Are  you  looking  for  Mr. 
Bagsbury  ?  He  went  home  about  an  hour  ago, 
I  think.  I  want  him  myself.  He's  put  a  cer- 
tain paper  away  so  carefully  that  we  can't  find 
it." 

There  was  another  step  behind  them  and 
Sponley  entered  the  office.  He  glanced  about 
before  he  spoke. 

"  So  I've  missed  the  president  again,  have  I  ? 
That  seems  to  be  sort  of  habit  with  me  these 
days.  However,  it's  a  matter  of  business,  this 
time,  that  you  can  attend  to,  Mr.  Curtin." 

With  that  he  turned  and  bowed  to  Jack 
Dorlin.  It  was  a  polite,  deliberate  bow,  which 
turned  Jack  out  of  the  office  as  effectively  as  if 
it  had  been  a  whole  platoon  of  police. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A    BATTLE 

"YouR  coffee  must  be  stone  cold  by  this 
time,  dear,"  Alice  Bagsbury  observed  in  a  tone 
of  mild  remonstrance;  "shan't  I  pour  you 
another  cup  ? " 

"  What's  that  ? "  John  asked  absently,  from 
behind  his  morning  paper.  "  Oh,  yes,  if  you 
please."  He  took  up  the  cup,  but  instead  of 
handing  it  to  her,  he  drank  off  the  dismal  bev- 
erage, and  replacing  the  cup  in  its  saucer 
turned  back  to  his  paper,  apparently  under 
the  impression  that  he  had  followed  her  sug- 
gestion. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Dick,  "  I  think  it's 
dangerous  to  be  as  absent-minded  as  that.  If 
that  had  been  kerosene,  you'd  have  drunk  it 
just  the  same  —  all  of  it." 

John  dropped  the  paper  beside  his  chair, 
stared  at  his  plate  a  moment,  and  then  turned 
to  Dick. 

118 


A  Battle  119 

"  Did  either  of  you  say  anything  to  me  just 
now  ?  I  think  I'll  have  some  more  coffee. 
What  are  you  laughing  about  ? " 

"  I  said  I  thought  there  must  be  something 
very  entertaining  about  the  front  page  of  that 
paper,"  said  Dick. 

"Entertaining  isn't  just  the  word,"  he  an- 
swered slowly.  "  It's  what  I  call  confoundedly 
enterprising.  They've  told  a  great  deal  more 
than  they've  any  right  to  know,  and  the  worst 
of  it  is  they've  told  the  truth." 

"  I  don't  know  why  you  should  object  to  their 
telling  the  truth,"  said  Alice. 

"  Is  it  about  something  you're  concerned 
in  ? "  Dick  asked. 

John  nodded.  "  I  loaned  a  man  a  large  sum 
of  money  day  before  yesterday,  and  the  fact  of 
his  wanting  it  and  the  kind  of  security  he  put 
up  would  show  to  any  one  who  knew  about  it 
that  he  was  in  a  certain  deal.  He  didn't  want 
that  to  get  out,  so  I  was  very  careful  to  conceal 
the  loan.  And  here  this  paper  seems  to  know 
all  about  it:  not  only  about  the  deal,  which 
they  might  have  guessed  from  other  things, 
but  about  the  loan.  It  leaves  me  in  an  awk- 
ward position,  you  see." 


I2O  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"What  sort  of  deal  is  it  ? "  Dick  asked. 

"  Lard,"  said  John.  "  Here,  you  can  read  all 
about  it,"  and  he  handed  her  the  paper. 

Dick  glanced  at  the  staring  letters  of  the 
scare  head.  "  To  corner  lard,"  she  read.  "  I 
should  think  that  would  be  pretty  hard  to  do," 
she  said  reflectively. 

Then  as  John  looked  at  her,  manifestly  sur- 
prised at  the  sageness  of  the  remark  and  nodded 
assent  to  it,  she  added,  "  It's  so  squashy,  you 
know." 

John  laughed.  "You  took  me  in  that  time. 
Pickering  will  have  to  fight  though,  sure  enough. 
They're  likely  to  make  it  warm  for  him  to-day." 

"On  the  Board  of  Trade?"  cried  Dick. 
"Will  it  be  like  the  day  you  took  Alice  and 
me  ? " 

"  It  was  unusually  quiet  that  day,"  said  John. 

"  Quiet !  "  exclaimed  Alice.  "  It  made  my 
head  ache  for  two  days." 

"Will  it  really  be  worse  than  that?"  Dick 
asked.  "Oh,  I  wish  —  " 

John  glanced  at  his  watch  and  hurriedly  left 
the  table.  He  appeared  a  moment  later  at  the 
dining-room  door  and  said,  — 

"  If  you  and  Alice  care  to  come  to  the  bank 


A  Battle  121 

to-day  at  twelve  o'clock,  we  can  lunch  together 
and  then  look  in  there  for  a  few  minutes." 

They  exclaimed  simultaneously,  but  with 
different  import. 

"All  right,"  said  John,  "either  or  both.  Be 
•  there  sharp  at  twelve  if  you  want  to  catch  me." 

When  John  said  that  the  publication  of  the 
fact  of  the  lard  deal  and  of  his  loan  to  Pickering 
put  him  in  an  awkward  position,  he  stated  only 
the  least  of  his  perplexities.  He  did  not  doubt 
that  he  should  be  able  to  clear  himself  with  the 
soap  manufacturer,  not  only  of  wilful  betrayal, 
but  of  negligence.  What  troubled  him  was  to 
find  any  sort  of  explanation  of  how  the  secret 
could  have  got  out.  All  the  morning  the 
question  hung  in  his  mind  insistently  demand- 
ing an  answer.  The  only  answer  he  could  give 
was  one  which  his  reason  rejected  as  absurd, 
but  it  was  reiterated  as  obstinately  as  the  ques- 
tion itself,  the  name  of  Melville  Sponley. 

The  story  had  been  given  to  the  paper  by 
one  who  knew  the  facts.  It  was  no  ingenious 
surmise  of  one  who  followed  the  markets.  It 
did  not  tell  everything, — not  the  precise  amount 
of  the  loan,  nor  the  bank  that  made  it,  — yet  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  the  man  who  had  told  so 


122  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

much  knew  the  rest,  and  that  he  had  held  it 
back  for  reasons  of  his  own.  John  knew  it  was 
impossible  that  Sponley  could  have  found  out 
in  the  mere  instant  when  Pickering's  warehouse 
receipts  had  been  exposed  to  his  view  two  days 
before ;  but  he  could  not  rid  himself  of  the  con- 
viction that  it  was  Sponley  who  had  ferreted 
out  and  betrayed  his  secret. 

On  the  Board  of  Trade  they  had  nicknamed 
Sponley  the  "Black  Bear."  That  had  refer- 
ence, of  course,  to  the  side  of  the  market  on 
which  he  operated  oftenest  and  most  success- 
fully, but  it  had  this  morning  for  John  an  added 
significance.  How  clumsy  he  was  to  the  eye, 
and  yet  how  terribly  quick !  John  had  seen 
this  fat,  heavy-eyed  monster  go  into  the  corn  pit 
and  simply,  by  main  strength,  sell  the  market 
down  —  down  —  down.  They  were  afraid  of 
him  on  the  Board  of  Trade :  that  tells  the 
story. 

John  Bagsbury  was  generally  believed  to  be 
imperturbable.  This  morning  his  thoughts  were 
running  in  a  circle ;  his  secret  was  out ;  Melville 
Sponley  could  not  have  betrayed  it ;  no  one  else 
could  have  done  so.  Round  and  round  again, 
with  no  way  out,  and  yet  no  one  could  have 


A  Battle  123 

guessed  it;  he  worked  swiftly,  precisely,  pa- 
tiently, just  as  always. 

But  there  were  two  other  troubled  heads  in 
the  bank  whose  thoughts  were  under  no  such 
iron  control.  Curiously  enough,  each  in  his 
own  way  owed  his  perplexities  also  to  the  Black 
Bear. 

If  you  can  imagine  a  coward  trying  to  escape 
from  prison,  you  can  understand  Curtin's  state 
of  mind.  When  on  the  preceding  afternoon  he 
had  shown  Sponley  the  collateral,  he  had  felt 
keenly  humiliated ;  he  had  despised  himself,  and 
tenfold  more  he  hated  Sponley.  But  that  feel- 
ing was  gone  now.  The  Bear  had  been  right 
in  saying  that  it  was  just  a  question  of  money. 
His  being  trapped,  bound  fast  to  Sponley's  will, 
was  also  a  question  of  money.  And  now  Curtin 
had  found  a  way  of  escape,  or  rather  Sponley 
himself  had  unwittingly  shown  it  to  him,  and 
the  way  out  was  but  a  question  of  money,  too. 

When  in  John  Bagsbury's  office,  just  after 
Jack  Dorlin  had  gone  out,  Curtin  had  shown 
the  warehouse  receipts  to  Sponley,  the  latter 
had  exhibited  what  in  other  men  would  have 
been  excitement,  but  with  him  was  only  preoc- 
cupation. He  had  sat  down  at  John  Bagsbury's 


124  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

desk  and  looked  at  the  yellow  slips  for  some 
time.  Then  he  said,  — 

"  Pickering'll  have  to  pay  for  what  lard  he 
gets  to-morrow." 

Then  realizing  that  he  had  made  a  slip,  he 
had  quickly  begun  talking  about  something  else, 
and  Curtin  had  cunningly  feigned  that  he  had 
not  understood  the  chance  remark.  But  a  few 
minutes  later  he  was  walking  home  on  air.  For 
had  not  his  jailer  thrown  him  the  key  to  his 
cell? 

Curtin  had  played  with  the  markets  before ; 
that  was  the  reason  he  now  needed  a  job  as 
assistant  cashier,  or  as  anything  that  would  pay 
him  a  respectable  salary.  But  he  had  been  an 
outsider,  a  lamb.  He  had  believed  the  news- 
papers, he  had  followed  the  crowd,  he  had 
trusted  to  luck.  He  knew  now  against  what 
certainty  of  eventual  disaster  that  sort  of  a  game 
was  played.  But  now  he  was  an  outsider  no 
longer.  Inadvertently  Sponley  had  told  him 
that  lard  would  go  up  to-morrow.  Sponley 
knew,  because  he  himself  intended  to  make  it 
go  up.  And  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  Curtin 
would  play  with  a  probability  of  winning. 

When  he  had  won  (he  could  hardly  contain 


A  Battle  125 

himself  at  the  thought  of  it),  when  he  had  won 
—  well,  he  would  begin  by  telling  Sponley  to 
go  to  hell.  Ah,  Sponley  should  know  after  all 
that  he  had  hired  the  wrong  sort  of  man,  that 
it  was  unsafe  to  insult  a  gentleman  !  Then  he 
would  confess  to  John  Bagsbury  the  wrong  he 
had  done  him.  No,  that  would  hardly  do ;  but 
he  could  contrive  some  sort  of  restitution  to 
John,  and  then  he  would  live  happily  and  opu- 
lently ever  after. 

Thus  spake  the  prisoner ;  the  coward  had  other 
things  to  say.  He  must  use  the  bank's  money, 
he  had  none  of  his  own.  Then  what  if,  after  all, 
lard  should  go  down.  He  would  be  an  embez- 
zler, would  go  to  prison.  At  the  thought,  his 
mouth  became  dry,  and  curious  ripples  seemed 
to  run  the  length  of  all  his  muscles.  So  all  that 
morning  the  two  men  within  him  tore  Curtin 
grievously.  The  way  of  the  timorous,  half- 
hearted transgressor  is  hard  indeed. 

Jack  Dorlin's  perplexity  was  less  serious,  but 
very  irritating.  He  owed  it  only  indirectly  to 
the  Bear.  His  direct  concern  was  with  the 
jackal.  His  bit  of  impromptu  detective  work 
the  afternoon  before  had  been  as  unsuccessful 
as  possible.  Had  he  discovered  a  little  more  or 


126  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

a  little  less,  all  would  have  been  well.  But  as 
matters  stood,  he  had  enough  ground  for  serious 
suspicion  of  Curtin,  and  not  enough  to  warrant 
his  speaking  about  it  to  John  Bagsbury. 

He  had  come  to  the  bank  this  morning  full  of 
his  old  determination  to  mind  his  own  business. 
It  was  vain,  however,  as  vain  as  it  had  always 
been  before.  Curtin  was  so  persistently  erratic 
that  he  compelled  one's  attention.  Yesterday  it 
had  been  the  collateral  box ;  to-day  it  was  the 
telephone.  He  hung  over  it  all  the  morning, 
like  a  child  with  a  new  toy.  He  was  spending 
fifteen  minutes  out  of  every  hour  talking  into  it, 
and  for  the  rest  of  the  time  he  eyed  it  as  though 
momentarily  expecting  to  see  it  perform  a  mira- 
cle. It  was  such  an  innocent  occupation  that 
Jack  was  angry  with  himself  for  taking  it  so 
seriously.  The  other  clerks  were  grinning ; 
well,  he  would  grin  too.  But  it  was  a  very 
sorry  grin. 

At  last  he  fairly  got  into  his  work,  and  that 
brought  oblivion.  When  Hillsmead  interrupted 
him,  he  did  not  know  how  long  it  had  been  since 
last  he  was  conscious  of  his  surroundings. 

"That  was  a  confounded  pretty  girl,"  Hills- 
mead  was  saying.  "  Did  you  see  her  ? " 


A  Battle  127 

Jack  glanced  up  impatiently,  but  worse  than 
that  would  not  have  stopped  Hillsmead. 

"  I  think  I'll  have  to  find  out  who  she  was. 
She's  all  right.  I  wonder  what  she  wanted 
with  Bagsbury?" 

Jack  grabbed  his  hat.  "Where  is  she?"  he 
demanded. 

"  Do  you  think  you  know  her  ?  Say,  old  man, 
I  wouldn't  mind  if  you'd  introduce  —  She  just 
went  out.  I  think  she  turned  east." 

Jack  dashed  down  the  aisle  without  pausing 
to  think  on  the  marvel  he  had  wrought  in  check- 
ing Hillsmead  in  mid  career. 

At  the  door  he  glanced  swiftly  up  and  down 
the  street,  and  by  the  merest  luck  got  a  glimpse 
of  Dick  less  than  a  square  away.  Her  pace  was 
a  mere  stroll,  a  most  unusual  thing  with  Dick. 

"  Hello,"  he  said,  as  he  overtook  her. 

"Are  you  in  a  hurry?"  she  asked.  It  was 
his  manner  rather  than  his  pace  that  suggested  it. 

"  No,  I'm  in  a  thundering  temper." 

She  smiled.  "  That's  good.  You're  great  fun 
when  you're  that  way.  What's  the  matter  ?  " 

"  Hillsmead,"  he  said  shortly.  "  Hillsmead 
and  Curtin." 

"  Then  that  was  Mr.  Hillsmead  ! "  she  cried. 


128  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Oh,  he's  lovely  !  You've  never  done  him  jus- 
tice, Jack.  He's  so  pretty  —  and  glib,  and  com- 
placent. I  envy  you,  seeing  him  every  day." 

"  Where  are  we  going,  anyway  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Growly  !  "  she  commented  teasingly.  "  I 
don't  know  exactly.  I  think  I'm  going  home." 

He  said  nothing,  so  in  a  moment  she  added, 
"You'd  do  well  to  copy  Mr.  Hillsmead  in  one 
thing." 

"  That's  rough,"  he  said.  "  Rough  but  right- 
eous. In  common  courtesy,  he  has  doubtless 
outstripped  me  to-day." 

"It's  not  that;  it's  curiosity.  He  told  me 
that  Mr.  Bagsbury  was  out,  but  that  if  I  would 
confide  my  business  to  him,  his  valuable  services 
were  at  my  disposal.  And  he  was  so  sure  that 
he  could  do  it  better  than  Mr.  Bagsbury  that  I 
nearly  told  him  what  it  was." 

"  If  I'll  profess  Hillsmead's  curiosity,  will  you 
tell  me  ? " 

"  We  were  to  lunch  somewhere  and  then  go 
to  the  Board  of  Trade  to  see  them  do  things 
with  lard."  She  had  drawled  the  words  out  as 
slowly  as  possible,  and  now  she  glanced  at  him 
in  mock  distress.  "John's  gone  off,  you  see, 
and  forgotten  all  about  me." 


A  Battle  129 

He  stopped  and  gazed  at  her  seriously.  "  I 
wish  to  propose,"  he  said,  "three  cheers  for 
John  Bagsbury.  For  future  delivery,"  he 
added,  noting  her  look  of  alarm.  "  I'm  getting 
to  like  him  better  right  along." 

"It's  a  strange  thing,"  Jack  remarked  a 
few  minutes  later,  as  he  looked  at  her  across 
the  little  round  table ;  "  it's  a  strange  thing,  but 
when  I've  been  with  you  a  few  minutes  my 
troubles,  even  the  big  ones,  begin  to  look  like 
jokes.  I  really  think  they  are  jokes  until  I 
get  off  by  myself  again." 

"Tell  me  about  Mr.  Curtin,"  said  Dick, 
quickly.  "  I  can  guess  what  Mr.  Hillsmead  did 
to  make  you  wild,  but,"  the  dimple  which 
had  cautiously  appeared  at  one  corner  of  her 
mouth  vanished  again,  "  but  how  has  Mr. 
Curtin  been  bothering  you  ? " 

She  grew  very  serious  as  he  told  her  of  the 
assistant  cashier's  performances  of  the  day  be- 
fore ;  and  when  he  had  finished,  she  told  him  how 
John  was  worried  over  the  betrayal  of  his  secret. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  she  asked  anxiously, 
"  that  there's  any  connection ;  that  Mr.  Curtin 
had  anything  to  do  with  it  ?  " 

He  shook  his  head.     "  I  give  it  up.     But  \ 


130  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

know  this  :  we've  been  pretty  foolish  not  to  tell 
Mr.  Bagsbury.  We've  been  so  afraid  of  mak- 
ing ourselves  ridiculous  that  we  haven't  thought 
of  anything  else." 

"  We're  such  perfect  babes  in  the  wood  at  all 
this  sort  of  thing,"  said  Dick.  "Now  I  sup- 
pose that  any  person  of  average  business  intel- 
ligence would  see  through  it  all  in  two  minutes. 
But  I  believe  we  ought  to  tell  him,  anyway. 
Let's  do  it  to-night." 

"Both  of  us?" 

"Of  course,  I  wouldn't  do  it  alone  for  any- 
thing. Come,  let's  look  at  the  lard  corner." 

Just  as  they  were  entering  the  big  Board  of 
Trade  building  an  old  man  walked  briskly  past 
them  and  turned  into  the  office  of  Ball,  Snyder, 
and  Jones,  Brokers.  Even  at  that  place,  where 
the  money  value  of  mere  seconds  is  impressive, 
there  were  a  dozen  people  who  paused  to  glance 
curiously  after  him.  Dick  and  Jack  Dorlin  did 
not  know  who  he  was,  and  if  any  one  had  taken 
the  trouble  to  tell  them  that  it  was  William  G. 
Pickering,  they  would  have  thought  nothing  of 
it.  And  yet  the  fact,  that  at  just  that  moment 
that  one  man  should  enter  that  particular  office, 
was  interesting. 


A  Battle  131 

But  the  attention  of  these  two  was  absorbed 
by  the  distant  clamor  of  the  battle  which 
attacked  their  ears  the  moment  they  entered 
the  building.  It  was  an  angry  roar,  inarticulate, 
meaningless,  but  with  its  savage  crescendo  and 
its  fitful  diminuendo  it  was  vaguely  exciting. 
They  hurried  up  the  stairs  into  the  visitors' 
gallery  and  wormed  their  way  through  the 
crowd  to  a  position  from  which  they  could  see 
the  floor.  Their  first  glance  was  disappointing. 
It  added  nothing  to  the  sensation  they  had  felt 
at  the  first  sound  of  the  shouting.  The  only 
impression  they  could  get  was  of  a  vast  clamor- 
ing confusion. 

"  Are  they  really  doing  anything  but  yell  ? " 
asked  Dick. 

All  through  her  life  she  had  believed  that 
real  power  exerted  itself  quietly ;  that  noise  was 
the  manifestation  of  impotence,  and  it  was  hard 
for  her  to  take  this  mob  seriously. 

Before  Jack  could  speak  the  man  who  stood 
at  her  other  hand  had  answered  her.  He  was 
a  well-dressed  young  fellow,  who  seemed  vastly 
excited  over  the  battle. 

"  Anything  but  yell !  "  he  quoted.  "  They're 
making  a  price  that  will  rule  in  all  the  markets 
in  the  world." 


132  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

With  a  pressure  of  her  hand  she  signalled 
Jack  not  to  interfere,  and  then  asked  the 
stranger,  — 

"  Will  you  please  tell  me  what  is  happening 
down  there  ? " 

The  explanation  came,  swift  and  hot,  but  to 
Dick's  chagrin  it  was  in  a  foreign  language. 
She  caught  a  familiar  word  now  and  then,  but 
the  rest  was  as  meaningless  as  the  tumult  on 
the  floor. 

"  I  see,"  she  said  at  last.  Then  to  forestall 
any  further  explanation  she  asked,  "  Can  you 
tell  me  who  that  little  man  is  in  the  white 
flannel  coat  ? " 

"  Keyes,"  he  spoke  without  looking,  "  of 
Keyes  and  Sievert.  They're  buying  for  Picker- 
ing. Keyes  is  —  Ah  !  there  it  goes  up  again  !  " 

He  glanced  at  his  watch.  "  They've  got 
twenty  minutes  yet  before  closing  time.  They'll 
get  it  to  ten  cents.  See  !  there  again  !  " 

"How  can  you  tell  that  it's  gone  up?"  she 
asked. 

"See  those  fellows  on  the  edge  there, 
facing  this  way.  They  signal  the  changes  of 
price  with  their  hands  to  people  who  stay  near 
the  telephones.  There !  see  that !  " 


A  Battle  133 

Dick's  eyes  had  wandered  back  to  Keyes. 
He  was  standing  there  composedly,  his  memo- 
randum card  in  his  hand,  jotting  down  his 
purchases.  He  seemed  quite  unmoved  by  the 
excitement  around  him.  A  clerk  who  had  come 
running  the  length  of  the  room,  dodging  like  a 
football  player,  dashed  up  to  this  quiet  little 
man  in  the  white  flannel  coat  and  handed  him 
a  slip  of  paper.  Keyes  read  it  at  a  glance, 
tucked  it  in  his  pocket,  and  turned  back  to 
look  at  the  crowd.  Dick  fancied  she  saw  him 
smiling. 

Her  eyes  left  him  to  fall  on  a  very  tall  man 
who  was  forcing  his  way  with  much  haste  and 
little  ceremony  toward  the  centre  of  the  pit. 

"  That's  Jones,"  said  the  young  fellow  beside 
her,  "of  Ball,  Snyder,  and  Jones.  Wonder 
what's  coming  now?" 

There  was  a  momentary  lull  as  Jones  raised 
his  arm  and  thrust  his  hand  forward  with  all 
fingers  extended.  He  shouted  something  that 
was  unintelligible  to  Jack  and  Dick,  but  which 
raised  a  storm  in  the  pit.  Again  and  again 
he  repeated  the  gesture,  and  from  all  about 
the  pit  men  struggled  toward  him,  as  though 
they  wished  to  tear  him  to  pieces, 


134  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Another  messenger  boy  was  running  across 
the  floor,  and  Dick  watched  him  seek  out  Keyes 
again.  Keyes  read  the  second  message  and 
turned  back  to  the  pit.  His  arm  shot  forward, 
the  hand  erect,  palm  out,  and  said  something. 
He  did  not  have  to  shout.  The  pit  had  stopped 
to  gasp.  When  the  yell  broke  out  again,  it  was 
a  different  sort  of  yell.  It  drew  the  traders 
scattered  about  the  floor  and  in  other  pits  as 
a  magnet  draws  iron  filings.  Dick  heard  the 
young  fellow  at  her  side  choke. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  she  demanded.  "  What  has 
happened  ? " 

"  Keyes  —  is  —  selling." 

He  spoke  in  a  daze,  his  eyes  on  the  men  sig- 
nalling from  the  edge  of  the  pit. 

"  Do  you  know  why  he's  selling  ? "  asked 
Jack.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  spoken. 

"They've  busted  Pickering  —  that's  why  — 
and  a  lot  of  small  fry  with  him  that  don't  count, 
—  me  for  one." 

So  the  three  stood  there  watching  one  of  the 
sharpest  turns  that  most  irregular  market  has 
ever  made.  In  the  fifteen  minutes  before  clos- 
ing time  lard  dropped  nearly  three  cents  a 
pound.  The  one  who  understood  held  his  open 


A  Battle  135 

watch  in  his  hand  and  monotonously  reported 
the  swiftly  dropping  price  as  it  was  signalled 
over  to  the  telephones.  The  other  two  listened, 
bewildered  between  a  pity  for  him  and  a  convic- 
tion that  the  fifteen  minutes  would  never  end. 

Suddenly  he  slipped  his  watch  into  his  pocket 
and  turned  away. 

"  That  puts  me  out,"  he  said. 

And  then  —  it  seems  an  hour  afterward  to 
Jack  and  Dick  —  the  great  bell  rang,  and  it  was 
over. 

Without  speaking,  they  made  their  way  back 
to  the  ground  floor  and  drifted  along  with  the 
crowd  that  was  pouring  into  the  street. 

Just  before  they  reached  the  door  Jack  ex- 
claimed :  — 

"  Look !  there's  Curtin.  No,  don't  look  either. 
Turn  this  way." 

It  was  too  late  to  escape  him.  He  made  his 
unsteady  way  toward  them  and  stood  barring 
their  path. 

"  I  suppose  you  think  I've  been  drinking,"  he 
said  thickly. 

He  was  flushed;  his  eyes  rolled  about  aim- 
lessly. He  was  shaking  like  one  palsied. 

Jack  Dorlin  turned  to  Dick.      "Walk  right 


136  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

along  without  me,  please,"  he  said.  "  I'll  over- 
take you  in  a  minute." 

Then  he  caught  Curtin  by  the  arm,  and,  lead- 
ing him  to  the  sidewalk,  hailed  a  cab. 

"  I'm  not  drunk,"  Curtin  protested ;  "  I've 
not  been  drinking.  Oh,  my  God !  I'm  going  to 
prison!  I'm  going  to  prison  !  " 

He  tried  to  say  something  more,  but  simply 
choked.  Jack  thrust  him  into  the  cab  and  tell- 
ing the  driver  Curtin's  address,  he  pushed  his 
way  through  the  little  crowd  that  had  gathered, 
and  hurried  after  Dick. 

Then  they  walked  on  slowly  for  more  than 
a  block  without  speaking,  and  in  spite  of  the 
crowd  on  the  sidewalk  he  continued  to  stay 
close  at  her  side. 

"Hasn't  it  made  you  blue?"  he  asked.  She 
nodded  sympathetically. 

"  But  I'm  not  sorry  we  went,"  she  said  a 
moment  later.  "  I'm  glad  John  forgot  about 
me.  I  shouldn't  like  to  have  seen  it  with  him ; 
but  it's  different  with  you.  I  mean — " 

She  could  not  say  just  what  she  meant,  and 
with  heightened  color  she  added  quickly,  "  But 
I  don't  want  to  see  anything  like  that  again, 
ever." 


A  Battle  137 

"I've  had  enough  myself.  I'm  afraid  I'm 
getting  disgusted  with  the  whole  business,  Dick. 
I  feel  that  it  would  be  a  pleasant  change  to  set- 
tle down  and  live  on  a  farm  somewhere,  for  a 
while,  anyway.  Don't  you  ? " 

"  I  was  thinking  of  something  like  that 
myself,"  she  answered  thoughtfully.  "  We 
could  —  "  she  turned  away  suddenly  and 
glanced  up  the  street.  "  I  mustn't  keep  you 
any  longer.  I've  dragged  you  miles  out  of  your 
way  already.  No,  I'm  going  to  take  the  ele- 
vated right  here." 

She  had  not  meant  to  do  it ;  but  as  he  was 
leaving  her,  she  said, — 

"You'll — you're  coming  down  to  dinner  to- 
night, aren't  you  ? " 


CHAPTER   IX 

DEEPER    STILL 

HARRIET  SPONLEY  dressed  for  dinner  that 
evening  with  more  than  usual  care.  She  liked  to 
dress  well,  partly  for  her  own  sake,  and  partly 
because  her  husband  appreciated  it.  But  to- 
night she  seemed  able  to  find  little  satisfaction 
in  the  result  of  her  efforts. 

"  Your  gown  is  very  beautiful,"  the  maid  ven- 
tured timidly. 

Harriet  nodded  indifferently ;  then,  as  with  a 
gesture  of  impatience,  she  turned  away  from  the 
long  mirror,  her  eyes  fell  upon  the  neat  figure 
and  the  fresh  face  of  her  girlish  attendant.  She 
looked  at  her  so  long  and  so  hard  that  the  girl 
flushed  and  averted  her  eyes  uneasily.  Harriet 
smiled  and  patted  her  shoulder. 

"  I'm  very  glad  you  like  it,"  she  said  kindly. 
"  Now  run  along,  I  shan't  want  you  any  more." 

She  liked  her  maid.  She  petted  her,  and  — 
so  Sponley  said  —  indulged  her  most  outra- 
138 


Deeper  Still  139 

geously.  It  was  an  old  weakness  of  Harriet's 
—  this  fondness  for  a  pretty  face.  It  had  been 
the  source  of  her  affection  for  Alice  Blair. 

As  the  girl  left  the  room,  Harriet  dropped 
upon  the  little  round  chair  which  stood  before 
her  dressing  table,  and  resting  her  elbows  on 
the  table,  she  leaned  forward  and  stared  disap- 
provingly into  the  small  glass  which  hung  above 
it.  The  strong,  unpitying  light  which  the  two 
incandescent  lamps  threw  upon  her  face  re- 
vealed many  things  she  did  not  wish  to  see 
there.  What  a  jaded  face  it  was !  And  the 
lines  were  deeper  than  they  had  ever  been 
before.  She  rubbed  her  forehead  nervously, 
almost  roughly,  with  her  finger  tips,  as  though 
that  would  erase  them. 

The  day  had  been  peculiarly  trying  for  Har- 
riet. In  these  later  years,  every  flurry  on  the 
Board  of  Trade,  every  sudden  turn  in  the  stock 
market,  had  given  her  two  or  three  almost  intol- 
erable hours ;  but  to-night  the  slump  in  lard  was 
not  in  her  thoughts  at  all.  When  she  had  called 
Sponley's  attention  to  the  story  in  the  morning 
paper  of  Pickering's  prospective  corner,  he  had 
disposed  of  the  matter  with  a  glance  and  a  nod. 
Then  on  her  suggesting  that  he  had  known  all 


140  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

about  it  before,  he  had  replied  in  the  negative. 
He  was  holding  quite  a  line  of  lard  himself,  he 
said ;  but  with  this  rumor  of  a  deal  of  Picker- 
ing's he  had  no  concern. 

Five  years  ago  —  one  year  ago  —  the  smallest 
doubt  of  his  truthfulness  could  not  have  occurred 
to  her ;  she  knew  he  would  have  lied  to  himself 
as  soon  as  to  her.  She  remembered  how  he 
used  to  come  home  brimming  over  with  the 
day's  experiences,  how  eagerly  he  had  related 
and  explained  it  all,  and  how  confidently  they 
had  planned  out  their  to-morrows.  He  used  to 
tell  her  then  that  she  was  the  mind  of  the  firm ; 
that  what  she  didn't  think  of  herself  she  made 
him  think  of ;  that  she  was  the  one,  big  reason 
for  his  remarkable  success.  And  he  had  meant 
it,  too ;  she  was  sure  of  that.  But  as  time  had 
gone  by,  his  confidences  had  been  growing  less 
spontaneous.  The  change  had  been  slow,  so  slow 
that  she  could  see  it  only  by  looking  back,  but  it 
was  unmistakable.  He  never  told  her  anything 
now  unless  she  asked  for  it.  And  to-day  he  had 
lied  to  her !  She  had  only  herself  to  blame  for 
it.  When  she  had  ceased  to  be  able  to  help  him, 
he  no  longer  looked  to  her  for  help.  She  was  an 
outsider  now ;  that  was  why  he  had  lied  to  her. 


Deeper  Still  141 

She  looked  intently  at  the  face  in  the  glass. 
"  He  will  see  to-night  —  he  will  surely  see  what 
a  miserable  wreck  this  old  woman  is,"  and  with 
that  she  rose  and  went  down  to  the  library  where 
he  was  awaiting  her. 

The  afterglow  from  splendid  masses  of  cloud 
high  up  the  sky  made  a  soft  twilight  in  the 
room ;  but  to  Harriet's  eyes,  blinded  by  the 
glare  to  which  they  had  been  subjected,  it  was 
quite  dark.  She  did  not  at  first  see  Sponley, 
who  was  standing  in  the  shadow. 

"You  almost  startle  me  sometimes,"  he  said, 
"  by  taking  me  back  twenty  years  or  so.  I  have 
to  think  of  myself  to  realize  that  we  aren't 
youngsters  again." 

"  It  must  be  the  gown,"  she  answered.  "  I'm 
glad  you  like  it." 

She  walked  to  the  window  and  stood  looking 
out.  The  diffused  light  hung  in  her  heavy  hair 
and  in  the  folds  of  her  dress,  and  her  husband 
watched  her  for  a  moment  in  silence.  The 
illusion  was  strong  upon  him. 

"  The  gown  !  "  he  said  at  last.  "  I  can't  see 
the  gown.  But  you  walk  like  a  girl,  only  more 
gracefully,  and  your  hair  —  you  are  getting 
younger,  Harriet." 


142  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Only  more  skilled  in  trickery."  She  spoke 
lightly ;  then,  with  a  glance  at  the  sky,  she  said 
in  an  altered  voice,  — 

"  How  fast  it  fades." 

"The  sunset?  It's  clouding  up  fast.  We'll 
have  a  shower  pretty  soon." 

"  Come,"  she  said,  "  let  us  go  to  dinner. 
I've  kept  you  waiting." 

Harriet  was  quite  herself  now.  All  through 
the  dinner  she  entertained  him,  talking  lightly 
about  the  little  amusing  incidents  of  the  day, 
and  though  her  gayety  ran  false  on  her  own 
ears,  she  knew  from  his  face  that  he  thought 
it  spontaneous. 

"  Your  day  has  gone  all  right,  I  suppose  ?  " 

It  was  the  question  she  had  promised  herself 
not  to  ask  again.  She  had  held  it  back  as  long  as 
she  could,  but  it  had  escaped  in  spite  of  her,  and 
she  realized  how  vain  such  a  promise  had  been. 

He  nodded.  "  Nothing  much  one  way  or  the 
other." 

"You  didn't  do  any  trading  in  lard,  then. 
That  must  have  been  rather  exciting  when  it 
slumped." 

He  smiled.  "  You  didn't  think  I'd  got  caught 
in  that,  did  you  ?  " 


Deeper  Still  143 

"  The  other  way  about,"  she  said  with  a  laugh. 
"  I  hoped  you  might  have  made  something  on 
it.  You  knew  it  was  coming,  didn't  you  ?  " 

"  No,  I'm  leaving  lard  alone  just  now."  (She 
wondered  how  real  the  indifference  in  his  voice 
might  be.)  "  That's  Pickering's  deal.  I  haven't 
mixed  into  it  —  yet —  What's  that?" 

His  exclamation  was  caused  by  the  sound  of 
voices  raised  in  altercation.  It  was  followed  by 
the  thud  of  heavy  footsteps  approaching  the 
dining  room.  Sponley  had  half  risen  from  his 
chair  when  the  portiere  was  roughly  brushed 
aside  and  Curtin  entered  the  room. 

"  I've  found  you,"  he  said.  "  The  maid  told 
me  you  were  at  dinner.  She  didn't  want  to  let 
me  in,  but  I  came.  She  thought  I  was  drunk ; 
everybody  thinks  I'm  drunk,  but  I'm  not.  I 
had  to  see  you  on  a  matter  of  importance." 

He  spoke  clumsily,  with  a  labored  distinctness. 
Sponley  looked  at  him  from  head  to  foot,  at  his 
flushed  face  and  disordered  clothes. 

"Take  off  your  hat,  Mr.  Curtin,"  he  said 
shortly. 

"I  —  I  forgot,"  stammered  Curtin.  " You 
probably  think  —  " 

"  One  moment,"  Sponley  interrupted.    "  Mrs. 


144  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Sponley,  if  you  will  leave  us  for  a  few  moments, 
I'll  attend  to  Mr.  Curtin's  business." 

When  they  were  alone  Sponley  forestalled 
Curtin's  attempt  to  speak. 

"  Don't  tell  me  again  you  aren't  drunk.  I 
know  you  aren't.  I  know  what's  the  matter 
with  you.  You've  been  buying  lard  to-day  and 
you've  got  squeezed.  That's  the  case,  isn't  it  ? " 

Curtin  stared  at  him  dully,  but  Sponley  did 
not  return  the  look.  He  eyed  his  half-empty 
coffee  cup  and  tapped  it  lightly  with  a  spoon. 

"  I  supposed  you  would  do  that,"  he  said 
thoughtfully,  "  and  I  suppose  you  have  taken 
some  of  the  bank's  money  to  buy  it  with.  You 
haven't  any  of  your  own." 

Curtin's  apathy  forsook  him  suddenly.  "  You 
suppose  !  "  he  cried.  His  shaking  voice  gained 
intensity  as  he  went  on.  "  You  knew  I  would. 
You  told  me  to.  You  told  me  lard  would  go  up, 
and  you  lied  to  me.  You  damned  old  devil," 
he  shouted,  "you  tricked  me.  You  did  it  to 
send  me  to  prison.  You  —  " 

"  Be  quiet !  "  Sponley  thundered.  It  had 
been  years  since  he  had  so  far  lost  control  of 
himself  ;  but  Curtin  had  chanced  to  strike  the 
joint  in  his  armor.  The  thought  that  Harriet 


Deeper  Still  145 

had  overheard  the  words  put  him  for  an  instant 
into  a  rage.  But  he  recovered  quickly. 

"If  you  raise  your  voice  like  that  again  in 
this  house,  I  shall  certainly  have  you  sent  to 
prison.  I'll  have  you  snug  in  jail  within  half 
an  hour.  I  promise  you  that." 

In  declaring  that  he  had  not  been  drinking, 
Curtin  had  told  the  truth ;  yet  his  mental  pro- 
cesses were  those  of  a  drunkard.  Of  all  this 
man's  many  weaknesses,  the  greatest  was  a 
lack  of  poise  ;  in  his  soberest  moments  he  was 
badly  ballasted.  The  experiences  of  that  after- 
noon, the  rapid  alternation  between  rage  and 
terror,  had  shaken  him  to  the  foundation,  and 
had  left  his  mind  in  a  state  of  unstable  equi- 
librium precisely  like  that  of  an  inebriate.  It 
careened  far  to  this  side  or  to  that  at  the  small- 
est suggestive  impulse.  Sponley's  threat  of 
sending  him  to  prison  had  recalled  the  night- 
mare of  the  afternoon,  and  his  anger  gave  way 
to  the  numbness  of  fear. 

"  If  you  were  in  condition  to  think,"  said 
Sponley,  meditatively,  "  I  could  convince  you 
that  I  didn't  try  to  lead  you  into  a  trap,  as  you 
say.  I  don't  want  you  in  prison  on  a  charge  of 
forgery  or  embezzlement  or  whatever  it  would 


146  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

be.  I  need  you  outside.  You'll  see  that  when 
you  get  quieted  down.  How  much  will  it  cost 
to  get  you  out  of  the  hole  ? " 

"A  little  over  ten  thousand."  The  words 
came  monotonously. 

Sponley  kept  his  eyes  on  the  coffee  cup. 

"  Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "  it's  worth  the  price. 
I'll  pull  you  out." 

Curtin  looked  at  him  in  a  daze.  Then  bury- 
ing his  face  in  his  hands  he  began  to  sob.  Even 
to  Sponley's  tough  sensibilities  the  sight  was 
revolting. 

"  Get  up  !  "  he  commanded.  "  Don't  be  a  dis- 
gusting  fool." 

"  I  can't  thank  you,"  the  other  began  brokenly. 

"  I  want  no  thanks."  Sponley's  voice  was 
almost  a  snarl.  "  It's  not  a  favor  to  you ;  it's 
business.  It's  worth  ten  thousand  dollars  to 
me  just  now  to  have  you  in  Bagsbury's  bank. 
You're  in  no  shape  for  anything  now.  Go  home 
and  go  to  sleep  and  come  back  here  before 
banking  hours,  and  I'll  talk  business  with  you 
and  arrange  to  square  you  with  the  bank. 
Come,  get  up  !  " 

Curtin  struggled  to  his  feet  and  started  toward 
the  library  door. 


Deeper  Still  147 

"  Not  that  way,"  said  Sponley,  sharply. 
"This  is  the  way  out." 

"  I  wanted  to  apologize  to  Mrs.  Sponley  for — " 

Sponley  caught  him  by  the  arm.  "  I  don't 
want  to  have  to  kick  you  out  of  the  house,"  he 
said  savagely.  "  Come  with  me." 

A  moment  later  he  spoke  to  Harriet  from  the 
library  door,  — 

"  I've  got  to  see  John  Bagsbury  for  a  while 
this  evening." 

"  Please  don't  go  just  yet.  I  want  to  speak 
to  you." 

Entering  the  room  he  saw  her  sitting  bolt 
upright  in  the  middle  of  the  big  sofa,  her  hands 
clasped  tight  in  her  lap,  her  face  colorless  to 
the  lips. 

"  What's  the  matter  ? "  he  cried  in  quick 
alarm.  "  Are  you  sick  ?  " 

"  Please  tell  me,"  she  said,  ignoring  his  ques- 
tion, "please  tell  me  all  about  it  —  about  Mr. 
Curtin." 

"  He'd  been  misled  by  something  I  said  about 
lard's  going  up  into  buying  a  lot  of  it  to-day.  Of 
course,  he  got  caught.  He'd  taken  the  bank's 
money  to  trade  with.  He  got  a  fool  notion  into 
his  head  that  I'd  meant  to  soak  him." 


148  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Did  you  manage  to  convince  him  to  the 
contrary  ?  "  she  asked  unsteadily. 

"  I  promised  to  meet  his  losses  out  of  my  own 
pocket  and  square  him  with  the  bank.  That 
seemed  to  convince  him." 

She  leaned  back  among  the  pillows,  breathing 
deeply  and  tremulously,  and  he  watched  her 
smiling. 

"  What  did  you  think  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I  didn't  think  at  all  —  I  couldn't.  I 
heard  what  he  shouted  at  you  just  as  I  went  out 
and  it  made  me  —  sick.  I  didn't  dare  to  think." 

He  sat  down  beside  her  on  the  sofa  and 
stroked  her  hand. 

"I've  been  silly  again,"  she  went  on  presently. 
"  You  see,  you  haven't  told  me  about  any  of 
your  plans  lately,  and  I'm  so  used  to  knowing 
that  when  you  don't  tell  me  I  get  to  imagining 
things  —  all  sorts  of  things." 

"  What  would  you  have  done  if  I  had  —  if  I 
had  run  it  into  Curtin  that  way  ?  What  would 
you  think  of  me  ?  " 

"  Don't,"  she  said  quickly,  "  don't  try  to  tease 
me  about  it.  I  didn't  really  think  so  for  a  min- 
ute." 

"The   fact    is,"   said  Sponley,  thoughtfully, 


Deeper  Still  149 

"that  this  sort  of  life  is  too  much  for  you. 
Yes,  it  is,"  he  repeated  in  answer  to  the  dissent- 
ing movement  of  her  head,  "  and  I  believe  it's  too 
much  for  me,  too ;  at  any  rate,  I'm  getting  a  lot 
less  enthusiastic  about  it;  I'm  beginning  to  like 
to  get  away  from  it  —  and  that's  something  new 
for  me.  I  suppose  that's  the  reason  I've  had  so 
little  to  say  about  it  to  you.  When  I  get  home 
I  like  to  think  about  other  things,  just  as  we  did 
to-night  at  dinner.  We'll  have  to  shut  up  shop 
permanently,  pretty  soon,  and  get  off  where 
it's  quiet ;  buy  a  farm  somewhere,  and  we'll  go 
into  politics  and  run  for  supervisor  or  something. 
Won't  that  be  a  good  thing  to  do  ?  " 

Her  only  answer  was  a  low,  contented  laugh, 
and  then  they  both  were  silent. 

Melville  Sponley  was  at  that  moment  just  at 
the  beginning  of  one  of  the  biggest  and  most 
daring  campaigns  he  ever  planned.  For  months 
he  had  been  ready  for  it ;  in  the  past  few  days 
certain  facts  had  transpired  which  had  enabled 
him  to  fix  his  plans  definitely.  The  preliminary 
moves  were  already  made.  The  next  move  was 
a  certain  proposition  he  meant  to  make  to  John 
Bagsbury  that  evening.  The  object  of  it  all  was 
to  break  Pickering's  corner  in  lard.  The  cam- 


150  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

paign  would  be  difficult,  but  in  point  of  strategy 
it  was  the  neatest  he  had  ever  planned.  All  the 
foresight  he  had  shown  in  dealing  with  John 
during  the  past  few  months  would  come  to  his 
help  now. 

But  right  on  the  threshold  he  was  hesitating. 
He  had  told  Harriet  the  truth  in  saying  that  he 
was  beginning  to  wish  to  quit.  He  had  been 
promising  himself  right  along  that  this  campaign 
should  be  his  last.  He  was  rich  enough  to  stop 
now,  as  far  as  that  went.  And  after  all,  why 
not  ?  Indecision  was  a  state  of  mind  quite  for- 
eign to  him,  but  to-night  his  mind  swung  from 
one  side  to  the  other.  When  Harriet  finally 
broke  the  long  silence,  she  almost  startled  him. 

"You've  made  me  happier  to-night  than  I've 
been  for  a  long  time.  But  I  don't  want  to  be 
left  alone.  I'm  afraid  I'd  get  to  thinking  about 
Mr.  Curtin.  You  get  the  carriage  and  take  me 
with  you  to  the  Bagsburys'.  I  shan't  mind  the 
rain." 

"  All  right,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  X 

NEVER    DID    RUN    SMOOTH 

"  HAVE  you  any  idea  what  it  is  that's  keeping 
Mr.  Bagsbury?"  Alice  asked  of  Jack.  She  had 
been  expecting  him  every  moment  while  they 
were  at  dinner,  and  the  tone  of  her  question 
betrayed  nervousness. 

"  No,"  said  Jack,  abstractedly,  then,  rousing 
himself:  "no,  he  just  told  me  I'd  better  come 
out  here  to  dinner  and  tell  you  not  to  wait  for 
him  as  he  would  be  late.  He  said  it  might  be 
eight  o'clock  before  he  could  get  home." 

"  Then  you  had  two  invitations,"  said  Dick. 

"  That's  why  I  ate  two  dinners." 

Alice  rose.  "  I  promised  Martha  to  help  her 
with  her  lessons.  I'll  leave  you  to  entertain 
each  other  until  John  comes  back." 

"  You  must  be  blue,"  Dick  remarked  when 
she  was  gone.  "  You  never  make  jokes  like 
that  except  when  you're  blue.  Oh,  I  know, 
you  want  to  smoke.  Let's  go  into  the  library." 


152  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

She  led  the  way  thither ;  and,  after  turning  on 
the  electric  lights,  seated  herself  at  the  end  of 
the  sofa.  Jack  lighted  a  cigar  and  stood  look- 
ing about  with  a  frown. 

"  Not  satisfied  yet  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  This  room's  all  right," 
he  said,  "but  we  see  it  too  plainly."  He  turned 
off  all  the  light,  and  groping  his  way  to  one 
of  the  windows  drew  wide  the  curtain.  For  a 
moment  he  stood  looking  out ;  then  he  raised 
the  window,  and  they  heard  the  summer  shower 
which  was  beating  straight  down  through  the 
still  air  upon  the  pavement.  The  big  arc  lamp 
from  the  street  threw  a  patch  of  white  light 
upon  the  floor. 

"For  purposes  of  romance,"  he  said,  as  he 
seated  himself  near  her  on  the  sofa,  "that 
doesn't  quite  come  up  to  the  moon ;  but  it  does 
its  best,  and  it  has  sense  enough  not  to  go  out 
just  because  it  rains." 

During  the  next  two  minutes,  as  Dick  watched 
the  rim  of  fire  which  glowed  now  bright,  now 
dull,  between  Jack  Dorlin's  cigar  and  its  ash, 
she  thought  of  many  things  to  say,  but  none  of 
them  seemed  to  fit.  Jack,  apparently,  had  no 
idea  of  saying  anything,  and  the  silence  seemed 


Never  did  run  Smooth  153 

to  her  to  be  acquiring  a  discomforting  signifi- 
cance. It  was  most  absurd  to  feel  that  way 
about  it ;  she  and  Jack  were  certainly  old 
enough  friends. 

"  Luckily,  we  don't  need  it  for  purposes  of 
romance  —  " 

That  wasn't  just  what  she  meant,  either, 
and  she  added  hastily,  "You  know  this  is  to 
be  a  business  conversation.  We've  got  to 
decide  what  we'll  tell  John  when  he  comes 
home." 

"  That's  so,"  said  Jack,  vaguely.  Evidently 
he  had  nothing  more  to  contribute  to  the 
conversation. 

"Don't  you  suppose,"  Dick  began  again, 
"  that  perhaps  the  bank  was  hurt  by  Mr.  Pick- 
ering's failure  ?  John  had  just  lent  him  a  great 
deal  of  money,  you  know." 

"  He's  got  the  lard." 

"  Yes ;  but  the  lard  isn't  worth  nearly  as 
much  as  it  was." 

"That's  so,"  said  Jack,  more  abstractedly 
than  ever. 

"  Are  you  trying  to  be  stupid  ? "  she  asked 
almost  impatiently. 

"  I  don't  think  I'm  stupid  at  all.     I'm  just 


154  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

enjoying  things.  That  patch  of  electric  light, 
and  this  rain,  and  this  —  " 

She  interrupted  him:  "And  I've  been  dis- 
turbing your  peaceful  soul.  Just  let  me  turn 
on  a  light  for  a  minute  to  find  a  book,  and  then 
I'll  leave  you  to  the  contemplation  of  your  street 
lamp." 

She  spoke  laughingly,  but  he  saw  that  she 
meant  it. 

"  Don't  go,  Dick.  I  want  to  talk  to  you.  I 
was  just  getting  myself  together." 

Dick  dropped  back  upon  the  sofa  from  which 
she  had  half  arisen.  The  situation  was  going 
from  bad  to  worse. 

"  I  must  own  up  at  last  to  something  that 
I've  known  for  months  and  haven't  been  willing 
to  admit  to  myself.  I've  been  trying  to  con- 
vince myself  that  it  wasn't  so;  but  it's  no  use 
for  me  to  pretend  any  longer.  I'm  making 
myself  ridiculous  by  plugging  away  down  there 
at  the  bank." 

Dick  gasped.  She  was  glad  the  room  was 
dark,  for  she  could  feel  her  face  burning. 

"  Please  don't  think,"  Jack  went  on,  quite 
innocently,  "  that  it's  the  work  I  don't  like ;  I 
really  enjoy  the  drudgery.  It's  the  doing  it  so 


Never  did  run  Smooth  155 

badly  that's  discouraging.  I'm  just  a  regular 
fool  down  there.  Why,  I  come  up  here  even- 
ings and  laugh  over  Hillsmead,  but  I'll  wager 
it  isn't  a  circumstance  to  the  way  Hillsmead 
laughs  over  me.  It  isn't  as  though  I  shirked 
my  work  and  didn't  care.  I've  been  doing  the 
best  I  know,  and  worrying  myself  gray-headed 
over  it;  I'm  kept  back  by  sheer  mental  inca- 
pacity." 

"  That's  nonsense." 

"Oh,  I  thought  so  myself  at  first,"  he  an- 
swered, with  a  laugh,  "  and  I  went  on  telling 
myself  so,  long  after  I  knew  it  wasn't." 

There  was  a  short  pause,  and  then  he  went  on : 

"  I  went  into  the  bank  partly  because  it  was 
an  amusing  novelty,  and  partly  with  the  insane 
idea  that  I  was  rather  more  intelligent  than  the 
average  born-and-bred  bank  clerk,  and  that  I 
could  do  his  work  unusually  well.  But  the  main 
reason  why  I  did  it  was  that  I  wanted  to  con- 
vince you  that  I  was  really  some  good  after  all. 
It  was  a  sort  of  gallery  play  when  you  come  to 
look  at  it." 

"  I  think  that's  about  the  unfairest  thing  you 
ever  said :  unfair  to  both  of  us." 

"  I  don't  mean  it  just  as  it  sounds.     It  wasn't 


156  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

your  fault  that  you  never  took  me  seriously. 
You  couldn't,  because  I  didn't  myself.  I  was 
contented  with  amusing  myself  at  the  expense 
of  people  who  took  things  seriously. 

"  I've  learned  other  things  in  the  last  six 
months  besides  the  fact  that  I'll  never  be  worth 
more  than  fifteen  dollars  a  week  in  a  bank." 

His  words  halted  there.  They  had  been  com- 
ing easily  enough  until  now,  for  they  had  put  off  a 
little  the  declaration  that  he  knew  he  must  make. 
They  had  meant  nothing,  but  this  next  sentence 
—  yes,  it  must  be  the  next  —  might  sweep  away 
the  hope  that  had  grown  to  be  the  dearest  thing 
he  owned. 

The  words  were  there,  but  he  could  not  force 
them  from  his  lips.  If  he  had  but  known  it,  there 
was  small  need  of  them.  Her  hand  was  resting 
on  the  sofa  right  beside  him.  He  knew,  because 
his  own  had  touched  it  a  moment  ago ;  she  had 
not  taken  it  away.  Yes,  he  could  have  told  her 
the  story  without  words.  But  at  last  he  went  on 
again,  speaking  very  slowly :  — 

"  Do  you  remember  —  I  fancy  you've  not  for- 
gotten —  long  ago  —  it  was  the  second  summer 
vacation  you  spent  with  us,  the  summer  after  I 
graduated — one  August  evening  I  told  you  —  " 


Never  did  run  Smooth  157 

"Yes,  I  remember." 

"  And  you  told  me  I  was  mistaken ;  that  you 
were  perfectly  sure  that  I  didn't  have  the  least 
idea  of  what  it  meant  that  I  had  told  you.  You 
remember  it,  don't  you,  Dick  ? " 

She  nodded.  He  was  not  looking  at  her,  but 
he  took  her  silence  for  assent. 

"  I've  learned  these  last  few  months  that  you 
were  right ;  that  I  was  mistaken  —  " 

It  was  not  at  all  remarkable  that  neither  of 
them  heard  John  Bagsbury's  steps  as  he  neared 
the  library  door,  nor  that  when  he  opened  it  they 
both  started  violently.  John  peered  about  in 
the  dark,  groped  his  way  to  the  switch,  and 
turned  on  the  light.  Then  he  saw  who  were 
sitting  on  the  sofa. 

" Excuse  me,"  he  said.  "I  —  Alice  told  me 
you  were  here  —  "  He  looked  at  them  doubt- 
fully'for  a  moment,  and  then  repeating,  "  Excuse 
me,"  he  turned  to  leave  the  room. 

"  Oh,  don't  go  !  "  Dick  exclaimed,  somewhat 
breathlessly,  "  we  were  waiting  for  you  to  come 
home.  We  wanted  to  talk  with  you  —  we  turned 
out  the  light  because  —  " 

Here  the  words  seemed  to  stick.  She  turned 
sharply  away,  toward  the  window,  as  it  hap- 


158  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

pened,  and  started  to  rise.  John  followed  the 
glance.  "  Don't  get  up,"  he  said  quickly. 
"I'll  draw  the  curtain." 

As  John  turned  his  back,  Dick  looked 
squarely  at  Jack  Dorlin  as  though  challenging 
him  to  read  whatever  he  could  in  her  flushed 
face. 

"  Talk,"  she  commanded  under  her  breath. 

"  I've  been  telling  Miss  Haselridge,"  he  said 
when  John  had  returned  and  seated  himself  near 
them,  "  that  I  thought  I'd  quit  the  bank." 

"  I'm  glad  of  that,"  said  the  Banker. 

Jack  had  never  learned  how  not  to  be  discon- 
certed by  John  Bagsbury's  brief,  unequivocal 
way  of  putting  things.  He  had  no  wish  to  con- 
tinue this  conversation ;  but  feeling  that  he  owed 
it  to  Dick  to  keep  things  going  somehow,  he 
managed  to  give  reasons  for  his  decision. 

"  Understand,"  said  John,  "  it's  largely  on 
your  account  that  I'm  glad  you  have  decided  to 
try  something  else.  Your  work,  so  far  as  I 
know,  has  been  satisfactory.  The  trouble  is 
you  started  out  too  late  to  do  much  at  this  sort 
of  business,  and  you  aren't  naturally  cut  out  for 
it,  anyway.  I  think  you're  right,  that  you  can 
do  better  at  something  else.  But  you've  done 


Never  did  run  Smooth  159 

a  hundred  per  cent  better  than  I  thought  you 
could;  and  if  you'll  let  me  say  so,  you've  in- 
creased my  respect  for  you  in  about  the  same 
ratio.  I'll  be  glad  of  the  change  on  my  own 
account,  too,  because  I'd  rather  know  you  as 
a  friend  from  the  outside  than  as  one  of  my 
employees." 

John  could  hardly  have  given  them  a  better 
opportunity  to  tell  him  what  they  had  been 
planning  to  tell  him  of  their  suspicions  regard- 
ing Sponley  and  Curtin;  but  perhaps  because 
each  was  waiting  for  the  other,  or  because 
neither  could  think  of  the  right  words  to  intro- 
duce so  delicate  a  subject,  it  was  John,  very  red 
and  uncomfortable  over  the  compliment  he  had 
just  paid  Jack,  who  broke  the  silence. 

"  Do  you  want  to  leave  the  bank  at  once  ? " 
"  N — no,"  said   Jack.     "  If  you're  willing  to 
keep  me,  I'd  like   to  stay  until   I    can   decide 
what  to  do  next." 

"  Will  Mr.  Pickering's  failure  hurt  the  bank  ? " 
Dick  asked  the  question  rather  nervously.     It 
was  an  approach  to  what  she  wished  to  say 
about  Curtin. 

"  Pickering  hasn't  failed,"  said  John,  in  sur- 
prise ;  "  what  made  you  think  he  had  ?  " 


160  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Between  them  they  told  him  what  they  had 
seen  on  the  Board  of  Trade ;  but  they  said  noth- 
ing—  it  seemed  impossible  to  say  anything  — 
of  their  encounter  with  Curtin. 

"  Pickering  didn't  tell  me  what  he  meant  to 
do,"  said  John,  thoughtfully,  "  but  I  understood 
what  the  object  of  his  move  was.  He's  in  bet- 
ter shape  than  he  was  this  morning.  He  busted 
the  market  himself,  turned  right  around  and 
sold  to  himself  through  other  brokers." 

"What  did  he  want  to  do  that  for?"  she  asked. 

"Don't  you  see?"  said  John;  "he  wants  to 
buy  all  the  lard  there  is.  That  puts  the  price 
up.  Well,  as  soon  as  it  was  known  that  he  was 
buying  heavily,  a  lot  of  other  fellows  —  some  of 
them  regular  traders  on  the  board,  but  more 
outsiders,  who  thought  they  saw  a  chance  to 
get  rich  in  ten  minutes — came  around  and  began 
to  buy,  too.  Of  course,  as  long  as  they're  buy- 
ing, Pickering  can't  get  it  all ;  so  he  busted  the 
market,  knocked  the  bottom  right  out  of  it,  so 
as  to  shake  out  the  little  fellows  who  were  get- 
ting in  his  way.  He  did  it  uncommon  well,  too. 
I  don't  think  I  ever  saw  anything  in  provisions 
take  a  quicker  tumble  than  lard  did  this  after- 
noon. He  must  have  caught  a  lot  of  small 


Never  did  run  Smooth  161 

traders.  He's  got  more  lard  than  ever,  and  he's 
got  the  price  hammered  down,  too,  though 
that'll  get  right  back  in  a  day  or  two.  He  may 
have  to  do  the  trick  two  or  three  times  before 
they  learn  to  leave  him  alone." 

"  I  suppose,  from  his  point  of  view,  that's  all 
right,"  said  Jack.  "To  me,  who've  never  got 
the  idea  of  it,  it  seems  very  much  like  run- 
ning a  knife  into  another  fellow's  back.  The 
business  disgusted  me  this  afternoon,  when  I 
couldn't  understand  it;  and  now  that  I  do,  it 
seems  worse." 

"  I  wonder  how  the  little  ones  who  were 
caught  feel  about  it?"  said  Dick. 

"  Oh,  it's  all  business,"  answered  the  Banker, 
slowly.  "  They  know,  or  at  least  they  ought  to 
know,  just  what  chance  they  run.  What  Pick- 
ering did  was  what  they  might  have  expected 
him  to  do ;  there  wasn't  anything  irregular 
about  it.  Though  I  admit,"  he  went  on, 
"  that,  personally,  I  don't  like  the  idea  of  it. 
I'm  glad  it  isn't  my  business." 

"  But  do  you  think  it's  honest  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Commercially  honest,"  he  answered.  "  In 
any  sort  of  business  a  man  finds  out  before  long 
that  that's  a  pretty  complicated  question.  To 

M 


1 62  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

people  who  live  as  you  do,  honesty  must  come 
pretty  easily.  But  it  takes  a  lot  more  than 
good  intentions  to  make  an  honest  —  banker, 
for  instance." 

"  That's  the  first  time  I  thought  of  honesty  as 
an  accomplishment,"  laughed  Dick. 

"  Well,"  said  John  Bagsbury,  with  a  smile, 
"  I  mean  all  right ;  but  if  it  came  to  a  pinch,  I 
don't  know  how  far  I  could  bet  on  my  own." 

The  door-bell  had  rung  while  they  were  talk- 
ing, and  John  glanced  into  the  hall  to  see  who 
the  visitors  were. 

"  Hello !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  there  are  the  Spon- 
leys.  Come  in ! "  He  hurried  from  the  room  to 
welcome  them. 

"Well,  we  haven't  told  him,"  said  Jack. 
"Come  on,  let's  escape  somewhere." 

Alice  Bagsbury  had  heard  the  voices  and  was 
coming  down  the  stairs,  so  that  there  was  a 
momentary  delay  in  the  hall. 

"  If  you  don't  hurry,  we'll  surely  get  cut  off," 
Jack  continued  eagerly.  "  Where  shall  we  go  ? 
Into  the  dining  room  ? " 

But  instead  of  answering  him,  Dick  bowed, 
smiling  to  some  one  behind  him,  and  he  heard  a 
voice  saying,  "  Good  evening,  Miss  Haselridge." 


Never  did  run  Smooth  163 

He  turned  around  and  bowed  to  Mrs.  Spon- 
ley  with  what  appearance  of  cordiality  he  could 
muster.  He  was  puzzled  rather  than  annoyed. 
He  had  never  known  Dick  to  be  slow  before. 
Yet  certainly  they  should  have  been  able  to 
escape  easily. 

"  I  came  to  talk  over  a  little  business  with 
John,"  said  Sponley.  "  I  don't  know  why 
Harriet  came." 

"  And  I  came  to  —  to  hear  Mr.  Dorlin  play ; 
I  had  an  intuition  that  he'd  be  here."  Harriet 
laughed  as  she  spoke  and  turned  to  Jack. 
"Will  you?"  she  asked.  "Come,  let's  go  into 
the  drawing-room." 

Musically,  Jack  was  something  of  a  classicist; 
but  to-night,  after  he  had  dug  his  fingers  into 
one  or  two  vicious  arpeggios,  he  began  playing 
some  very  modern  Russian  music  —  music  which 
suggests  to  the  untutored  ear  the  frightful  pos- 
sibility that  the  pianist  is  playing  in  the  wrong 
key  with  his  left  hand.  Jack  enjoyed  it;  it 
served  admirably  as  a  vent  to  his  irritation. 
What  an  evening  he  had  had  of  it !  Interrupted 
by  John  Bagsbury  just  as  he  was  telling  Dick 
—  well,  the  most  important  thing  one  could 
tell  a  girl,  and  then  interrupted  by  the  Sponleys, 


164  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

just  as  he  thought  he  had  it  on  the  tip  of  his 
tongue  to  tell  John  about  Curtin.  Mrs.  Spon- 
ley  was  the  worst  offender :  by  her  unseemly 
haste  into  the  library  she  had  cut  off  his  re- 
treat with  Dick ;  then  she  had  stranded  him  at 
the  piano ;  and  now,  instead  of  talking  to  Mrs. 
Bagsbury,  she  was  monopolizing  Dick  at  the  far 
side  of  the  room.  As  he  thought  of  his  griev- 
ances, his  interpretation  of  the  very  modern 
Russian  music  grew  more  and  more  enthusi- 
astic, until  it  seemed  fairly  inspired.  When  he 
finished,  there  was  a  request  for  more ;  but  it 
was  faint. 

He  looked  helplessly  about  the  room  for  an 
instant;  no,  there  was  nothing  else  for  it.  "  I'm 
sorry,"  he  said,  "but  I  must  be  going."  He 
shook  hands  with  Alice,  bowed  to  Mrs.  Spon- 
ley,  and  then  looked  hard  at  Dick.  But  she 
returned  his  unspoken  message  with  only  a 
nod  of  farewell.  "  Come  again,  as  soon  as  you 
can,"  she  said. 

Jack  strode  down  the  front  steps,  for  once 
in  his  life  thoroughly  angry.  Whatever  Dick 
might  think  of  him,  however  tired  she  might  be 
of  having  him  tell  her  that  he  loved  her,  he  at 
least  deserved  a  hearing.  He  knew  that  she 


Never  did  run  Smooth  165 

could  have  escaped  from  the  library;  that  just 
now  she  might  easily  have  excused  herself  and 
followed  him  into  the  hall,  as  she  had  done  a 
dozen  times  before.  She  had  chosen  that  way 
of  telling  him  that  she  did  not  wish  him  to 
finish  what  he  had  begun  to  tell  her ;  what  he 
had  kept  himself  from  telling  her  all  these  last 
six  months. 

So  through  the  still  pouring  rain,  up  this 
street  and  down  that,  without  rain-coat  or  um- 
brella, splashed  Jack  Dorlin,  angry,  miserable, 
promising  himself  a  vengeance,  and  calling 
himself  a  cad  for  thinking  of  such  a  thing ; 
making  new  resolves,  good  and  bad,  at  every 
street  corner,  and  rejoicing  only  in  the  water 
which  drained  from  the  brim  of  his  straw  hat 
and  drenched  his  thin-clad  shoulders. 

Truly  it  is  a  madness,  though  not  confined  to 
midsummer. 


CHAPTER   XI 

COMMON    HONESTY 

IN  the  library  the  two  men  watched  the  door 
until  it  clicked  shut  behind  those  who  were 
going  into  the  drawing-room  to  hear  Jack  Dor- 
lin  play.  Then,  after  adjusting  his  easy-chair 
so  that  the  light  would  not  fall  on  his  face,  John 
Bagsbury  seated  himself. 

"  I'm  tired  to-night.  This  has  been  a  big 
day.  You  say  you  have  some  business  to  talk 
over.  It's  against  your  rule,  isn't  it,  to  talk 
business  after  dinner  ?  " 

Sponley  nodded.  "  This  is  rather  important ; 
and  I  couldn't  be  sure  of  catching  you  the 
first  thing  in  the  morning,  so  I  broke  over,  for 
once. 

"  I  came  around,"  he  continued,  "  to  ask  you 
what  you  mean  to  do  with  Pickering  ?  " 

If  John  had  any  movement  at  all,  it  was  like 
that  of  a  man  who  had  just  lighted  a  good 
cigar,  —  a  relaxing  of  the  muscles,  a  sinking 
1 66 


Common  Honesty  167 

somewhat  deeper  into  the  big  arm-chair.  Spon- 
ley  glanced  at  him,  expecting  a  reply,  but  it 
was  near  a  minute  before  John  spoke. 

"Why  do  you  want  to  know?  I  mean,  in 
what  capacity  do  you  ask  me  ? " 

"  Why  —  as  a  director  in  Bagsbury  and  Com- 
pany's Savings  Bank,  I  suppose,"  said  Sponley, 
tolerantly. 

"  I  have  said  nothing  to  my  directors  about 
any  business  dealings  with  Pickering."  The 
words  were  not  said  brusquely;  they  were  the 
simple  statement  of  a  fact. 

"  Exactly,  and  therefore  one  of  your  directors 
is  compelled  to  come  and  ask  you  about  it  in 
order  to  find  out." 

"  And  as  I  have  said  nothing,"  John  con- 
tinued more  slowly,  "it  is  a  fair  inference  that 
I  have  nothing  to  say." 

Sponley  laughed.  "  That's  a  bit  radical ;  in 
fact,  it's  irregular.  A  director  is  generally  sup- 
posed to  have  a  right  to  know  about  a  thing  like 
that.  But  then  I  can  understand  that  there  are 
times  when  a  banker  doesn't  want  his  directors 
to  bother  him  —  till  afterward.  But  I  don't 
insist  on  my  status  as  a  director.  I  repeat  the 
question  as  Melville  Sponley." 


1 68  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"That's  somewhat  different" 

Sponley  eyed  him  alertly,  expecting  that  he 
would  go  on.  But  John  showed  no  sign  of  any 
such  intention.  He  was  sitting  quite  still  in  his 
chair  —  lazily  is  perhaps  a  better  word  —  and 
his  eyes  were  shut. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  the  Bear  asked  evenly, 
"  that  this  fencing  is  a  waste  of  time  ?  I  have 
asked  you  what  you  mean  to  do  about  Pickering. 
I'd  like  to  have  you  tell  me." 

After  another  moment  of  silence  John  replied, 
but  with  a  question:  — 

"  What  do  you  know  about  Pickering  ?  Or, 
rather,  how  do  you  know  that  there  is  anything 
for  me  to  tell  you  ? " 

Not  until  that  moment  did  Sponley  realize 
that  here  was  a  man  who  could  match  him  at 
his  own  game.  He  discovered  the  fact  when 
he  found  himself  sitting  bolt  upright,  his 
muscles  drawn  taut,  a  sharp  reply,  on  the  end 
of  his  tongue.  He  dropped  back  into  his  chair 
and  said  patiently,  — 

"  I  did  just  what  every  other  man  in  the  city 
who  has  the  smallest  interest  in  commercial 
matters  did  before  ten  o'clock  this  morning,  I 
read  the  story  in  the  Herald" 


Common  Honesty  169 

"You  accused  me  a  minute  ago  of  fencing 
with  you,"  John  spoke  quickly ;  "  I  was  not 
fencing.  I  was  a  little  in  doubt  as  to  just 
where  we  stood,  and  I  asked  questions  to  find 
out.  But  when  you  tell  me  that  all  you  know 
about  the  Pickering  deal  is  what  you  read  in 
the  Herald,  you  are  —  evading.  The  story 
mentioned  neither  me  nor  my  bank." 

"  For  the  last  twenty  years,  or  thereabouts, 
we've  called  each  other  friends,"  said  Sponley, 
thoughtfully.  "  Neither  of  us  take  much  stock 
in  gush,  and  I  shan't  begin  at  it  now.  But 
we've  found  we  can  help  each  other,  and  that 
it  has  paid  to  hang  together.  How  much  more 
it  means  than  that  there's  no  good  discussing. 
I  think  the  mere  question  of  self-interest  ought 
to  make  it  clear  to  you  where  we  stand. 

"Regarding  what  I  know  about  Pickering," 
he  went  on,  "  I  tell  you  frankly  that  I  know 
more  than  was  in  the  paper.  I  know  that  you 
loaned  him  half  a  million  dollars,  and  that  you 
took  his  lard  as  security.  I'm  not  at  liberty  to 
tell  how  I  found  that  out." 

"  There  was  a  time  to-day,"  said  John,  quietly, 
"  when  if  I  could  have  got  hold  of  the  man  who 
had  sold  that  information,  I  think  I  would  have 


I/O  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

strangled  him.  I  don't  feel  that  way  now, 
though." 

"  It  wouldn't  help  you  if  I  were  to  tell  you 
the  name  of  my  informant.  You  couldn't  trace 
it  through  him.  Have  you  thought,  —  I  don't 
like  to  say  anything  of  this  kind  on  just  a 
guess,  but  this  matter's  serious  enough  to  war- 
rant it,  —  have  you  thought  of  young  Dorlin  in 
that  connection  ? " 

John  smiled.  "No,"  he  said  dryly;  "it wasn't 
Dorlin." 

"  He  seems,"  Sponley  went  on  slowly,  "  to 
be  pretty  thoroughly  in  your  niece's  confi- 
dence —  " 

"We'd  better  leave  Miss  Haselridge  out  of 
the  discussion  entirely,"  said  John. 

At  that  moment  Sponley  began  to  wonder 
whether  he  had  not  made  a  mistake  in  leaving 
Dick  so  completely  out  of  his  accounting.  He 
had  hardly  so  much  as  looked  at  her.  He  had 
thought  himself  familiar  with  every  influence 
which  had  a  bearing  on  John  Bagsbury ;  but 
certainly  he  had  never  considered  her  in  such  a 
connection  —  this  pretty  girl,  just  out  of  college, 
who  liked  to  pretend  that  she  was  interested 
in  the  banking  business. 


Common  Honesty  171 

"All  right,"  said  Sponley,  "that  was  just  a 
chance  idea  of  mine;  take  it  for  what  it's  worth. 
But  that  isn't  what  I've  come  to  talk  about.  I 
want  to  advise  you  to  let  go  of  Pickering." 

"You  mean  not  to  let  him  have  any  more 
money  ?  " 

"  No,  I  mean  to  get  back  what  you've  already 
loaned  him,  and  get  it  back  quick  —  to-morrow, 
if  possible." 

He  paused.  "  Well,  go  on,"  said  the  Banker ; 
"  let's  have  the  rest  of  it." 

"  I  say  to-morrow,  because  to-morrow  will 
be  your  last  chance.  Pickering's  as  good  as 
busted." 

"  We're  on  the  wrong  tack  altogether,"  said 
John.  "  Don't  you  see  we  can't  get  anywhere 
without  straight  talk  ?  You  know  perfectly 
well  that  it  was  Pickering  himself  who  knocked 
the  bottom  out  of  September  lard,  and  you 
know  why  he  did  it." 

"  I  wasn't  referring  to  that,  and  I  am  giving 
you  straight  talk,  as  you  say.  We  know  each 
other  too  well  to  try  any  sort  of  bluff.  The 
market's  going  to  take  another  tumble  to-mor- 
row, and  it  won't  be  any  of  Pickering's  doing, 
then.  Lard's  as  sure  to  drop  to-morrow  as  the 


172  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

sun  is  to  rise,  and  we,  the  bank,  that  is,  want 
to  stand  from  under." 

There  was  no  response  from  the  Banker,  and 
Sponley  looked  at  him.  The  face  in  the  shadow 
told  him  nothing,  nor  the  attitude,  but  at  last 
John  spoke :  — 

"You  puzzle  me,"  he  said.  "I  still  don't 
know  where  you  stand.  You  come,  you  say, 
in  the  interest  of  the  bank,  with  information 
that  is  vital,  and  yet  you  don't  give  it  to  me. 
I  loaned  Pickering  money  on  what  I  considered 
good  security.  You  want  me  to  try  to  get  the 
money  back  on  the  strength  of  what  may  be 
just  a  guess  of  yours.  I  can't  put  my  judgment 
into  another  man's  hands." 

"  It's  not  a  guess,"  Sponley  spoke  almost 
eagerly.  "  I  know  it." 

"Then,"  said  John  Bagsbury,  "if  your  warn- 
ing is  in  good  faith,  tell  me  how  you  know  it." 

"  I  know  it,  because  I'm  going  to  bust  him 
myself." 

"  Can  you  do  it  ? " 

"Yes." 

"Without  the  help  you  want  me  to  give 
you  ? " 

"  Yes." 


Common  Honesty  173 

"  Can  you  do  it  if  I  back  up  Pickering  just 
as  I  would  any  other  customer  ? " 

Again  the  unqualified  affirmative. 

And  again  the  Banker  was  silent.  Had  he 
expressed  doubt  or  even  positive  conviction  that 
Sponley  was  wrong,  had  he  shown  righteous 
indignation  and  spoken  of  treachery,  the  Bear's 
part  would  have  been  easier.  He  showed  noth- 
ing ;  whether  he  was  determined,  or  afraid,  or 
in  doubt,  Sponley  could  only  guess. 

Direct  argument,  threat,  entreaty,  explana- 
tion, were  to  Sponley  unwonted  weapons.  His 
strategy  did  not  favor  the  frontal  attack.  He 
was  a  master  at  the  art  of  making  his  opponent 
do  the  fighting,  of  giving  him  plenty  of  rope, 
and  allowing  him  to  entangle  himself  in  it.  But 
here  with  John  Bagsbury  it  seemed  to  be  the 
other  way  about.  There  was  about  John  the 
strict  economy  of  effort  which  one  sees  in  a 
skilled  fencer  :  never  a  word  that  was  not  neces- 
sary ;  never  a  flourish  of  high-sounding  senti- 
ment; simply  alertness  and  repose  and  the 
patience  of  the  everlasting  hills. 

So,  though  Sponley  waited,  he  knew  it  was 
in  vain,  and  at  last  began  doing  what  he  had  so 
often  compelled  other  men  to  do. 


1/4  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"This  is  the  situation.  I'm  making  this 
proposition  in  your  interest  and  in  my  own,  too. 
I  ought  to  have  told  you  that  at  the  start.  I'm 
fighting  Pickering  in  this  deal.  I've  got  a  big 
job  on  my  hands,  but  I  can  do  it.  There  are 
a  few  fellows  who'll  be  with  me,  but  not  to  any 
great  extent.  If  I  don't  make  a  lot  of  money, 
I'll  be  busted;  but  I'm  going  to  make  it.  I'm 
not  going  it  blind.  It's  natural  that  in  a  big 
fight  like  this  I  don't  like  to  see  you  helping  out 
the  other  fellow.  I  don't  ask  you  to  help  me ; 
all  I  want  is  that  you  shall  be  neutral.  It's  bad 
enough  to  be  up  against  Pickering  without  hav- 
ing to  fight  you,  too." 

It  had  a  plausible  sound  not  unsatisfactory  to 
Sponley ;  but  John's  next  question  cut  right  to 
the  root  of  it. 

"  How  long  ago  did  you  go  into  this  deal  ? " 

Little  more  than  twenty-four  hours  had  passed 
since  the  Bear  had  seen  and  seized  this  oppor- 
tunity. He  answered  easily  :  — 

"  Oh,  a  couple  of  months.  I  began  selling 
September  lard  in  May." 

But  he  could  not  guess  from  the  unexpres- 
sive  face  whether  or  not  the  Banker  knew 
he  had  lied.  John's  silence  had  in  it  a  sting 


Common  Honesty  175 

which  urged  Sponley's  faculties  to  their  best 
efforts. 

"This  is  no  whining  for  mercy,  you  under- 
stand. It's  no  figure  of  speech  when  I  say  that 
your  interest  lies  the  same  way." 

He  paused  as  though  to  marshal  his 
thoughts ;  then  continued :  — 

"  Pickering's  a  good  man,  but  an  old-timer. 
Even  in  his  day  lard  was  never  so  easy  to  cor- 
ner as  it  looked ;  but  now  when  they  can  make 
it  without  hogs,  it's  impossible  for  a  man  to 
hold  up  the  market.  Right  in  this  city  there 
are  tanks  of  lard,  not  tierced,  that  Pickering 
has  never  heard  of ;  he  will  hear  of  'em  before 
he  gets  through.  I  have  fifteen  thousand 
tierces  myself  in  the  warehouses  that  he'll 
never  know  exists  until  it  hits  him. 

"  Now  if  I  bust  Pickering,  —  and  I  give  you 
my  promise  that  I  will,  — just  think  where  you'll 
be.  You've  got  the  lard,  forty  thousand  of  it, 
and  you'll  be  lucky  if  you  don't  have  to  take 
forty  thousand  more  before  the  end,  and  you 
won't  be  able  to  get  rid  of  it.  The  market'll  be 
swamped,  buried  under  it.  Of  course,  in  the 
end,  the  bank'll  get  its  money  back,  but  for  a 
while  you'll  be  in  the  hole.  In  fact,  when  the 


176  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

next  stockholders'  meeting  comes  round,  you'll 
be  in  a  hole,  and  it  won't  be  pleasant  to  have  to 
tell  those  old  fossils  how  you  lost  it. 

"You  know  the  make-up  of  the  Board  of 
Directors,"  Sponley  said  slowly,  pushing  the 
words  home  hard.  "  There's  a  majority  that  in 
general  back  up  your  policy ;  but  I  don't  believe 
many  of  them  would  take  kindly  to  this  sort  of 
business  :  I'm  opposed  to  it  myself, —  for  what- 
ever motives  you  please,  —  and  I  count  one. 
You  know  how  disagreeable  a  strong  opposition 
in  your  board  would  be.  By  letting  go  right 
away,  you  can  please  everybody ;  it'll  strengthen 
you  immensely  with  the  old  crowd,  and  I 
think,  —  "  there  was  just  an  instant's  pause,  and 
then  the  words  were  shot  precisely  into  the 
centre  of  the  target,  —  "I  think  that  Cartwright 
and  Meredith  will  look  at  the  matter  much  as  I 
do,  and  that  that  kind  of  conservatism  will  go 
a  long  way  toward  convincing  them  that  you 
ought  to  have  full  control  of  your  father's 
estate.  You've  got  old  Moffat  well  in  hand 
yourself;  so  there  you  are.  You  can  run  the 
bank  as  you  please  by  next  January,  if  you  only 
play  it  right  now." 

"There's  a  practical  detail  to  consider,"  said 


Common  Honesty  177 

John.  "You  say  I  should  drop  Pickering  to- 
morrow. What  excuse  have  I  for  calling  his 
loan  ? " 

"That's  not  difficult.  Ask  him  for  some 
security  other  than  lard.  The  tumble  the  stuff 
took  yesterday  is  excuse  enough  for  that,  though 
it  was  his  own  doing.  He  won't  be  able  to  put 
up  any  other  collateral  to-morrow  morning.  Then 
sell  his  lard.  There'll  be  market  enough  for  it 
The  whole  thing'll  go  like  clockwork." 

Sponley  lighted  a  cigar  and  walked  to  the 
bookcase.  He  had  said  all  that  was  necessary, 
and  he  was  too  wise  to  say  more;  so  he  stood 
looking  at  the  books,  his  back  to  John.  Occa- 
sionally he  would  take  out  a  volume  which  had 
attracted  his  eye,  and  glance  through  its  pages. 
He  was  in  no  hurry.  John  should  have  plenty 
of  time  to  think. 

John  was  not  thinking  at  all.  There  was 
coming  before  his  mind's  eye  a  succession  of 
pictures,  without  consequence,  and  quite  irrele- 
vant to  the  situation  he  ought  to  be  facing.  They 
were  just  haphazard  memories,  —  some  recent, 
some  very  old,  nearly  all  of  them  trivial.  He 
saw  Sponley  lighting  his  cigar  when  they  had 
just  lunched  together  for  the  first  time  —  how 


178  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

long  ago  ?  He  saw  himself  slamming  the  car- 
riage door  on  Harriet's  skirt  when  they  were 
coming  from  a  play  one  night.  He  saw  —  and 
this  took  him  far  back  into  his  boyhood  —  his 
father  taking  books  out  of  that  very  shelf  where 
Sponley  stood,  and  handing  them  to  Martha, 
who  dusted  them  rebelliously.  As  he  looked 
at  this  half-forgotten  sister  of  his,  the  childish 
figure  grew  older,  and  he  saw  that  she  was  Dick 
Haselridge,  smiling  whimsically,  just  as  a  little 
earlier  that  evening  she  had  smiled  over  the 
notion  that  honesty  was  a  matter  of  more  than 
good  intentions. 

"  This  is  your  proposition,  as  I  understand  it," 
said  John.  "  I  sell  out  Pickering,  on  a  pretext, 
to-morrow  morning.  When  he's  weakened  by 
that  attack,  you'll  throw  your  lard  in,  and  that'll 
break  him.  And  afterward  you  will  turn  Cart- 
wright  and  Meredith  over  to  me,  and  support  me 
as  before  on  the  Board  of  Directors." 

"  That's  about  it,"  said  Sponley,  without  turn- 
ing. 

"  You  want  my  answer  to-night  ? " 

"  If  you  please." 

"You  won't  get  it,"  said  the  Banker,  "to- 
night, or  any  other  time." 


Common  Honesty  179 

Sponley  whirled  around.  "What  do  you 
mean  ? " 

John  had  risen  and  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
pockets.  His  voice,  when  he  spoke,  was  a  little 
louder  and  it  had  a  nasal  resonance  peculiar  to 
his  moments  of  excitement. 

"  I  mean  that  I  do  not  see  that  anything  you 
have  proposed  requires  an  answer." 

The  two  men  looked  full  into  each  other's 
eyes.  There  was  no  regret  there  over  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  ties  of  a  score  of  years ;  that  would 
come  later,  probably  to  both  of  them.  Now,  there 
was  nothing  but  the  old  primal  lust  of  fighting : 
a  challenge  flatly  given  and  swiftly  accepted. 

"  Steady,  there  !  Steady !  "  said  Sponley, 
softly.  "  I'm  going  to  smash  Pickering ;  and  if 
you  don't  stand  from  under,  I  swear  to  God  I'll 
smash  you,  too." 

Once  more  John  Bagsbury's  answer  was  si- 
lence. As  he  turned  away,  there  was  no  gesture 
even  of  dissent,  and  his  face  told  nothing.  He 
stood  looking  at  the  picture  cover  of  a  magazine 
which  chanced  to  lie  on  the  centre  table ;  his 
hands  were  still  in  his  trousers  pockets,  every 
line  of  his  long,  supple,  loose-jointed  figure 
showed  him  to  be  at  ease. 


180  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Sponley  looked  at  him,  then  he  replaced  the 
books  he  was  holding  on  the  shelf,  and  with  a 
swift  decision  he  made  his  first  move. 

"  Bagsbury,"  he  said,  "  I'm  a  fool.  I've  lost 
my  temper.  Haven't  got  it  back  yet.  I'm  dis- 
appointed that  you  can't  help  me  out.  But  I 
can  see  how  the  business  looks  to  you,  or,  rather, 
I  know  I'll  be  able  to  see  to-morrow  morning. 
I  don't  feel  like  talking  about  it  yet,  and  I'm 
going  home.  But  the  thing' 11  come  out  right, 
somehow.  We  aren't  children.  Come,  the  oth- 
ers'll  wonder  what's  become  of  us." 

It  was  not  fear  that  induced  the  sensation  of 
nausea  which  John  Bagsbury  experienced  at  that 
moment,  though  Sponley's  conciliatory  words 
were  far  more  formidable  than  his  previous 
declaration  of  war,  for  they  meant  that  the  war 
was  already  begun.  For  a  flash  this  uncontrol- 
lable disgust  showed  in  his  face.  Sponley  saw 
it  and  understood. 

"Come,"  he  repeated,  "let's  find  the  others." 

An  hour  later  Dick,  entering  the  library,  found 
John  sitting  there  alone. 

"  Come  in,"  he  called,  "  come  in,  Dick,  you're 
just  the  one  I  wanted  to  see." 

But  though   she  came   and   stood   near  his 


Common  Honesty  181 

chair,  he  seemed  again  to  have  lost  himself  in 
a  brown  study. 

"Has  anything  serious  happened?"  she 
asked  at  length. 

"  I  think  I  want  to  thank  you,  Dick,"  he 
said,  disregarding  her  question.  "  I  think 
you've  pulled  me  out  of  the  hole. 

"A  man  loses  something,  living  as  I  have," 
he  went  on  presently.  "  He  loses  the  power 
of  seeing  things  clearly.  I  suppose  you  never 
have  any  doubt  as  to  whether  a  thing's  straight 
or  crooked.  I  have  an  idea  that  having  you 
around  —  well  —  that  you've  brushed  up  my 
windows  a  little,"  he  smiled  apologetically 
over  the  figure,  "and  —  and  I  want  to  thank 
you." 

Dick's  eyes  were  full,  and  she  was  not  sure 
of  her  voice,  but  even  if  she  had  been  ready, 
John  would  not  have  given  her  time  to  speak. 
He  was  filled  with  a  mixture  of  embarrassment 
and  alarm  over  the  words  he  had  just  said,  and 
he  hurriedly  changed  the  subject. 

"  I'm  afraid  you  won't  forgive  me  readily 
for  coming  in  here  as  I  did  when  you  and 
Dorlin  — " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  forgive  you  ? " 


1 82  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"Why,  yes;  I  interrupted  —  " 

"You  didn't  interrupt  at  all.  We  were  just 
—  we  were  waiting  for  you.  And  anyway,  when 
people  are  as  good  friends  as  we  three  are, 
there  isn't  any  such  thing  as  an  interruption." 

"  Friends  ? "  he  said.     "  You  and  —  " 

"That's  just  what  Jack  and  I  are,  if  that's 
what  you  mean.  I  was  afraid  you  might  not 
understand." 

John  was  still  smiling  somewhat  sceptically. 

"  He  was  speaking  of  that  himself,  to-night  — 
of  our  being  friends,  I  mean.  He  told  me  —  " 

(Dick !  Dick !  what  are  you  doing  ?)  She 
hesitated  a  moment ;  then  it  came  with  a  rush. 

"  He  told  me  that  he  had  thought  once 
that  —  that  —  but  he  knew  now  he  had  been 
mistaken." 

Her  face  was  averted.  Her  voice  was  un- 
even, but  with  what  kind  of  emotion  John 
could  not  be  sure.  He  was  not  expert  in  the 
matter  of  inflections. 

"  Are  you  laughing  or  crying,  Dick  ? " 

"Neither,"  she  answered,  turning  upon  him; 
"  I'm  going  to  bed." 


CHAPTER  XII 

CONSEQUENCES 

OFTEN  it  is  not  the  first  step  that  costs,  but 
the  waiting  for  the  second.  Last  night,  at  a 
crisis,  John  Bagsbury  had  found  it  easy  to  make 
what  was  really  the  most  important  decision  of 
his  life.  However  carefully  he  had  balanced 
upon  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  proposition 
Sponley  had  made,  when  it  came  to  the  ex- 
treme instant  of  choice,  the  question  had  been 
referred  not  to  his  judgment,  but  to  a  senti- 
ment. His  words  had  said  themselves.  But 
this  morning  it  was  the  Banker,  a  very  different 
person  from  the  picture-seeing  John  Bagsbury, 
who  sat  at  his  desk  trying  to  think  through 
the  situation,  and  to  guess  what  would  happen 
next. 

The  sentiment  which  gets  a  man  into  a  diffi- 
culty rarely  stays  around  to  help  him  out  of  it, 
and  what  the  Banker  saw  was  enveloped  in  no 
luminous  atmosphere  of  optimism.  Sponley  had 
183 


184  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

not  overstated  the  case  last  night.  In  support- 
ing Pickering,  John  knew  that  he  must  en- 
counter determined  hostility  in  his  Board  of 
Directors;  that  if  he  had  not  won  clear  by 
next  January,  his  chance  of  reelection  was 
nothing ;  and,  worst  of  all,  he  seemed  to  have 
thrown  away  the  possibility  of  getting  absolute 
control  of  his  property  from  the  trustees. 

The  Banker  had  to  reckon  with  a  formidable 
antagonist,  but  he  had  this  advantage,  —  in  his 
long  association  with  Melville  Sponley  he  had  not 
walked  blindly.  He  knew  his  man  thoroughly. 
This  knowledge  had  saved  him  from  being 
deceived  by  the  Bear's  last  conciliatory  words. 
Sponley  did  not  make  a  fool  of  himself,  Spon- 
ley did  not  lose  his  temper.  The  man  to  whom 
he  confessed  such  things  would  do  well  to  be 
very  alert.  When  he  had  said,  "and  I  swear 
to  God  I'll  smash  you,  too,  if  you  don't  stand 
from  under,"  he  had  meant  it.  He  would  do 
nothing  in  anger  or  from  spite,  nothing  that 
was  not  directly  in  line  toward  his  end  ;  but  once 
convinced  that  it  was  necessary,  not  for  a  breath 
would  he  hesitate. 

John  thought  long  and  carefully  over  the 
probable  nature  of  Sponley's  next  move.  The 


Consequences  185 

most  obvious  thing  for  the  Bear  to  do  would 
be  to  work  among  the  other  directors  and  en- 
deavor to  stir  up  a  storm  of  such  violence  that 
John  would  be  forced  either  to  let  go  of  Pick- 
ering or  to  resign  from  the  presidency.  If 
that  were  all,  if  it  were  to  be  simply  a  question 
of  brute  strength  and  patience,  there  was  no 
doubt  in  John's  mind  as  to  the  outcome.  They 
could  not  force  him  bodily  out  of  the  bank,  at 
least,  not  till  the  fight  was  over ;  and  he  knew 
they  could  not  frighten  him  into  yielding. 

There  were  moments  when  he  ceased  to  be 
a  banker,  when  he  was  simply  John  Bagsbury ; 
and  then  into  his  memory  would  come  vivid 
patches  of  the  old  time,  and  he  would  realize 
how  much  he  had  counted  on  the  friendship 
he  had  just  broken.  Those  were  unpleasant 
moments;  they  brought  him  even  a  sensation 
of  physical  discomfort,  but  they  were  infrequent 
and  brief.  In  a  moment  he  was  again  a  mere 
strategist,  studying  his  enemy's  positK  i.  With 
Sponley  to  fight,  it  was  unlikely  to  be  a  ques- 
tion merely  of  strength.  The  Bear  was  sure  to 
practise  some  wily  deviltry  or  other,  but  there 
was  no  foreseeing  what  it  would  be;  so  John 
did  his  other  work,  and  waited  for  the  disagree- 


1 86  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

able  scenes  he  felt  sure  were  coming  with  the 
directors. 

He  waited  all  day  —  it  was  Thursday  —  and 
all  through  two  that  followed  ;  but  no  one  came 
to  remonstrate,  or  advise,  or  threaten ;  no  one 
who  came  seemed  to  have  any  knowledge  of 
the  loan  to  Pickering.  It  was  Sunday  morning 
before  anything  of  that  sort  happened. 

But  if,  on  Friday  afternoon,  he  had  gone  to 
the  golf  links,  and  there  could  have  sat  unob- 
served within  earshot  of  a  conversation  which 
took  place  about  dinner-time  in  a  corner  of  the 
club-house  veranda,  he  would  have  heard  some 
interesting  facts  and  would,  perhaps,  have  been 
able  to  deduce  some  others. 

Mr.  Cartwright  and  Mr.  Meredith  played  golf 
together  once  a  week.  Mr.  Cartwright  played 
because  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty,  and  Mr.  Mere- 
dith because  Mr.  Cartwright  did.  They  played 
with  much  formality,  and  with  proper  regard 
for  the  conventions  of  dress  and  deportment; 
but,  unhappily,  with  no  great  skill,  and  for  this 
reason  they  chose  Friday  afternoon  for  their 
game.  They  would  come  out  to  the  club-house 
at  the  hour  when  there  were  likely  to  be  the 
fewest  people  about,  sheepishly  put  on  their 


Consequences  187 

golf  clothes,  —  they  were  still  as  self-conscious 
in  those  absurd  red  coats  and  checked  knicker- 
bockers as  youngsters  who  have  just  been  pro- 
moted to  long  trousers,  —  and  steal  away  to  the 
most  remote  holes,  where  they  would  play  vig- 
orously for  an  hour  or  so.  Then  hastily  they 
would  get  back  into  their  wonted  attire.  They 
really  enjoyed  the  rest  of  the  afternoon.  Finally, 
after  dining  on  the  veranda,  they  would  go  home 
together,  as  proud  and  boastful  over  their  golf 
playing  as  they  had  been  ashamed  of  it  while 
in  the  act. 

The  Friday  of  the  week  in  which  Pickering's 
lard  deal  sprung  into  public  notice  was  a  hot 
day,  especially  for  golf,  and  the  two  old  men 
were  unable  to  hide  from  each  other  the  fact 
that  they  were  glad  when  it  was  over.  But  the 
veranda,  about  sunset  time,  was  pleasant  enough 
to  compensate,  and  they  were  dining  there  with 
the  greatest  satisfaction,  when  a  man  they  knew 
invaded  their  privacy.  He  bowed  to  them  from 
the  doorway,  and  then,  after  hesitating  a  mo- 
ment, came  toward  them  and,  drawing  up  a 
chair,  seated  himself  at  their  table.  His  name 
was  Myers,  and  he  was  a  stockbroker. 

"This  is  a  double  fault  of   mine,"  he   said 


1 88  The  Banker  and  tJte  Bear 

with  a  deprecatory  smile ;  "  I've  intruded  myself 
upon  you,  and  now  I'm  going  to  intrude  a  mat- 
ter of  business." 

Mr.  Cartwright  frowned,  whereupon  Mr. 
Meredith  cleared  his  throat  impatiently.  "  Well, 
sir,"  said  Mr.  Cartwright. 

For  an  instant  a  smile  that  was  not  in  the 
least  deprecatory  quivered  in  the  corners  of 
the  stockbroker's  mouth.  "You  gentlemen 
are  trustees  of  the  Bagsbury  estate,  are  you 
not  ? " 

The  two  old  men  nodded,  and  their  faces  grew 
a  shade  redder ;  for  they  were  thinking  of  Mr. 
M  off  at,  the  disaffected,  the  revolutionary,  the 
schismatic,  the  bane  of  their  hitherto  peaceful 
existence.  It  was  not  necessary,  however,  to 
speak  of  Mr.  Moffat,  so  they  merely  nodded. 

"  I  thought  of  that  the  moment  I  saw  you 
together,"  Myers  went  on,  "  and  it  occurred  to 
me  that  you  were  precisely  the  men  I  wanted 
to  see.  A  large  block  of  the  stock  in  Bagsbury 
and  Company's  Savings  Bank  was  placed  in  my 
hands  this  morning  for  sale.  The  owner  gave 
me  no  further  instructions,  and  I  suppose  his 
idea  was  that  I  sell  it  on  the  stock  exchange,  in 
the  open  market.  There  would  be  no  difficulty 


Consequences  189 

about  that,  for  everybody  knows  that  the  stock's 
a  gilt-edged  investment." 

He  paused  to  give  them  plenty  of  time  to 
think,  and  then  went  on:  — 

"  Bank  affairs  are  like  family  affairs ;  if  you 
can  settle  them  without  an  appeal  to  the  gen- 
eral public,  it's  somewhat  better.  This  is  a  large 
block  of  stock,  and  offering  it  in  the  open  market 
would  attract  attention.  I  don't  know  that  it 
would  do  any  harm.  This  bank's  too  solid  to 
be  hurt  that  way.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  if 
I  could  sell  it  privately,  it  would  be  better.  In 
any  case,  it  wants  to  be  settled  up  by  to-morrow 
morning.  I  was  very  fortunate  in  finding  you 
here  together.  It  occurred  to  me  that  you 
trustees  might  want  to  buy  it  for  the  Bagsbury 
estate." 

Again  the  two  old  gentlemen  frowned,  and 
again  the  stockbroker  smiled  almost  impercep- 
tibly. For  the  estate,  indeed !  That  would 
mean,  no  doubt,  another  snub  from  the  intoler- 
able M  off  at. 

"  Or,  of  course,  for  any  other  party.  I  shall  be 
very  glad,  indeed,  if  you  gentlemen  can  relieve 
me  of  the  matter." 

"  It  was  most  praiseworthy  of  you  to  make 


The  Banker  and  the  Bear 


this  attempt  to  dispose  of  the  stock  quietly," 
said  Cartwright,  with  ponderous  condescension. 
"  I  cannot  applaud  your  delicacy  too  highly.  A 
public  sale  would  undoubtedly  arouse  imperti- 
nent curiosity  and  set  idle  tongues  to  wagging. 
We  shall  be  glad  to  consider  your  proposition. 
Er  —  who  is  the  present  holder  of  the  stock?" 

"  There  is  nothing  to  make  a  mystery  about. 
I  know  of  no  reason  in  the  world  why  I  should 
not  tell  you  it,  except  —  (he  was  something  of 
a  practical  humorist,  this  stockbroker)  —  except 
that  I  have  no  explicit  instructions  giving  me 
the  right  to  tell  you." 

"  You  decline  to  tell  me  —  " 

"  In  the  absence  of  express  permission  from 
my  customer  to  tell  you,  I  think  it  would  be 
rather  unbusinesslike  to  do  so.  That  is  all. 
You  are  familiar  with  the  way  the  stock  is  held, 
and  doubtless  if  you  buy  it,  the  certificates  will 
inform  you  who  it  is  who  has  sold  them." 

For  some  time  the  trustees,  or  rather  Mr. 
Cartwright,  toyed  with  the  bait,  trying  to  find 
out  who  was  holding  the  other  end  of  the  line. 
Through  the  conversation  you  must  imagine 
Mr.  Meredith  as  Echo,  sending  back,  with  pro- 
found conviction,  the  last  phrase  of  each  of  Mr. 


Consequences  191 

Cartwright's  sentences.  There  was  some  hag- 
gling over  the  price,  some  discussion  of  ways 
and  means,  and  at  last  the  two  old  gentlemen 
agreed  to  take  the  matter  under  serious  advise- 
ment, and  the  stockbroker  left  them. 

"  They  promised  to  let  me  know  in  the  morn- 
ing," Myers  telephoned  his  customer  a  little 
later.  "  I  think  we've  landed  them  all  right." 
Next  morning  he  was  able  to  verify  his  predic- 
tion. "I've  got  the  check.  They  tried  hard 
to  make  me  tell  them  who  you  were,  and  they're 
trying  to  guess  now,  from  the  names  of  the 
original  holders  on  the  certificates.  They're 
pleased  clear  through  over  the  deal,  though. 
They  think  it  gives  them  a  sort  of  a  grind  on 
Moffat." 

John  Bagsbury  always  began  the  celebration 
of  the  Sabbath  day  by  a  somewhat  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  shave  himself,  and  it  was  quite  in 
the  nature  of  things  that  when  he  came  down 
stairs  he  should  find  the  rest  of  the  family  wait- 
ing for  him  in  the  dining  room.  He  glanced  at 
the  index  column  of  the  thick  Sunday  news- 
paper, which  lay  beside  his  plate,  and  then, 
instead  of  making  his  usual  remark  that  he 
didn't  like  to  have  the  thing  in  the  house  and 


192  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

meant  to  discontinue  his  subscription,  he  turned 
quickly  to  the  front  page  of  the  supplements. 
There  in  big  letters  across  the  sheet  he  read, 
"  Pickering's  Lard  Deal."  The  article  which 
followed  was  treated  after  the  most  approved  prin- 
ciples of  Sunday  journalism.  There  was  a  mis- 
erable "  half-tone,"  which  bore  no  resemblance 
to  William  G.  Pickering,  and  there  were  spirited 
illustrations  of  the  scenes  on  the  Board  of  Trade 
when  the  bottom  had  mysteriously  fallen  out  of 
the  market.  The  subject  was  treated  exhaust- 
ively. Other  famous  deals  in  lard  were  brought 
up  for  comparison  with  this  one,  and  there  was 
a  detailed  account  of  Pickering's  earlier  exploits. 
And  then  at  the  bottom  of  a  half  column  of 
seemingly  learned  comment  upon  the  probable 
outcome  was  the  statement  that  Bagsbury  and 
Company  was  said  to  be  in  the  deal  with  Picker- 
ing, and  would  no  doubt  see  him  through  if  pos- 
sible, as  they  had  already  let  him  have  a  great 
deal  of  money. 

John  glanced  over  the  whole  article.  He 
should  have  taken  warning  from  the  other  and 
contrived  to  head  this  off;  but  there  was  no 
time  for  regretting  the  mistake,  and  he  turned 
from  that  to  the  present  aspect  of  the  situation. 


Consequences  193 

Sponley  had  made  his  second  move,  and  John 
felt  it  a  relief  that  the  period  of  inaction  was 
over.  The  Bear  must  have  had  some  good  rea- 
son for  waiting  till  now  for  giving  out  the  infor- 
mation he  had  possessed  as  early  as  Tuesday 
night  It  remained  for  the  Banker  to  discover 
what  that  reason  was. 

He  tossed  the  paper  aside,  told  two  funny 
stories  to  Mrs.  Bagsbury,  ran  a  verbal  tilt  with 
Dick,  who,  taken  by  surprise,  had  rather  the 
worst  of  it,  and  then  began  asking  Martha 
absurd  questions  about  her  Sunday-school  les- 
son. When  they  rose  from  the  table,  he  an. 
nounced  his  intention  of  going  to  church. 

"I  can  think  so  well  there,"  he  explained. 
"  I  can  see  through  more  things  while  the  ser- 
mon is  going  on  than  I  can  all  the  rest  of  the 
week." 

"There's  a  gentleman  to  see  you,  sir,"  said 
the  maid.  "  He's  in  the  library." 

When  John  opened  the  door  he  found  Mr. 
Cartwright  striding  hurriedly  about  the  room, 
much  in  the  manner  of  a  caged  polar  bear. 
The  old  gentleman  had  driven  to  the  house,  but 
he  could  not  have  looked  warmer  had  he  run  all 
the  way. 


IQ4  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Sit  down,  Mr.  Cartwright,"  said  the  Banker. 
"  Make  yourself  as  comfortable  as  possible  this 
hot  morning."  N 

But  Mr.  Cartwright  had  no  intention  of  being 
comfortable.  He  wheeled  upon  John,  drew  from 
an  inner  pocket  the  Morning  Herald  Supplement, 
and  thrust  it  out  at  arm's  length,  as  though  it 
were  a  deadly  weapon.  "  Have  you  read  that?" 
he  demanded. 

John  glanced  at  it  carelessly,  then  handed  it 
back.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  have  read  it.  That 
kind  of  thing  is  extremely  irritating." 

"  Irritating ! "  thundered  Mr.  Cartwright.  He 
walked  suddenly  to  the  window  and  peered 
anxiously  down  the  street.  "  I  telephoned  to 
Mr.  Meredith  to  meet  me  here,"  he  said,  in  an 
uneasy  parenthesis.  Then  turning  again  upon 
John  he  wrathfully  repeated,  "  Irritating !  " 

"That  is  my  great  objection  to  the  Sun- 
day papers,"  the  Banker  went  on  politely. 
"  They  drag  a  man  back  to  school  when  he's 
entitled  to  a  holiday.  A  man  should  be 
spared  annoyances  of  this  sort  one  day  in  the 
week." 

"  I  do  not  take  the  Sunday  papers ;  I  dis- 
approve of  them  as  strongly,  no  doubt,  as  you 


Consequences  195 

yourself.  This  infamous  article  was  shown  me 
by  a  friend  of  mine,  a  very  good  friend  of 
mine." 

"  I  should  be  inclined  to  doubt  the  friendship 
of  a  man  who  did  me  such  a  favor,"  said  the 
Banker,  smiling. 

"  Upon  my  word,  you  take  this  very  lightly, 
Mr.  Bagsbury ! "  The  old  gentleman  spoke 
fiercely,  but  he  was  not  himself ;  he  missed  his 
echo.  He  checked  another  movement  toward 
the  window.  "  I  wish  Mr.  Meredith  would 
come.  In  a  grave  matter  like  this,  his  judg- 
ment would  be  invaluable." 

"If  you  will  allow  me,"  said  John,  "it  seems 
to  me  that  you  are  taking  it  rather  more  seri- 
ously than  is  necessary." 

"Is  it  not  serious  ? "  demanded  the  other. 
"You  don't  mean  to  tell  me,  sir,  that  it  is  not 
true ! " 

"  It's  not  true.  It  has  a  groundwork  of  fact, 
if  you  will;  but  in  so  far  as  it  insinuates  that 
the  bank  is  involved,  and  that  the  safety  of 
the  bank  depends  on  Pickering's  succeeding 
in  running  a  corner  in  lard,  it  is  an  unqualified 
lie." 

"  I  was  otherwise  informed  by  my  friend  —  " 


196  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"Your  friend  is  one  who  can  speak  with 
authority  in  the  matter  ? " 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Cartwright.  "He  told 
me  that  for  several  days  he  had  feared  that 
this  would  happen.  He  thinks  that  the  publi- 
cation of  these  facts  puts  the  bank  in  a  very 
serious  position." 

"  Did  he  —  did  Mr.  Sponley,  I  mean  — suggest 
that  you  come  to  me  ? "  John  asked  quietly. 

"  I  do  not  see  the  pertinency  of  that  question, 
Mr.  Bagsbury."  Mr.  Cartwright  glanced  ner- 
vously toward  the  door.  He  longed  for  the 
unwavering  support  of  Mr.  Meredith's  valuable 
opinion. 

"You  are  right,"  said  John.  "That  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  But  I  can 
assure  you  that  Mr.  Sponley  is  mistaken.  I 
know  more  of  the  bank's  condition  than  it  is 
possible  for  Mr.  Sponley  to  know,  and  I  am  not 
at  all  alarmed.  We  may  feel  the  effect  of  this 
attack  for  a  few  months,  or  even  longer;  I 
fancy  that  we  shall.  But  I  cannot,  really,  see 
any  ground  for  your  concern  in  the  matter. 
Your  position  as  one  of  the  trustees  of  my 
property  is  not  affected.  Of  course,  if  the 
bank  should  fail,  you  might  have  to  bear  part 


Consequences  197 

of  the  stigma  that  a  bank  failure  almost  always 
brings.  But  the  bank  is  not  going  to  fail.  A 
falling  off  in  our  deposits,  or  a  depression  of  the 
market  value  of  our  stock,  or  even  the  passing 
of  a  dividend,  need  occasion  you  no  distress. 
Those  things  may  trouble  our  stockholders, 
though  I  don't  imagine  that  any  of  the  larger 
ones  will  feel  any  great  alarm.  But  you  and 
Mr.  Meredith  —  and  Mr.  Moffat  —  need  have 
no  uneasiness." 

"Mr.  Moffat  may  be  uneasy  or  not,  just  as 
he  pleases ;  but  Mr.  Meredith  and  I  are  stock- 
holders, sir;  large  stockholders." 

"  Indeed  ?  "  said  John.  "  Have  you  held  the 
stock  very  long  ? " 

"  There  again,  sir,  you  are  asking  an  imper- 
tinent question." 

The  next  moment  poor  Mr.  Cartwright,  his 
temper  all  gone  to  shreds,  drew  a  breath  of 
relief,  for  the  maid  had  opened  the  door  and 
ushered  Mr.  Meredith  into  the  library. 

"  Mr.  Cartwright  and  I  have  been  discussing 
this  most  unfortunate  article  in  the  Herald" 
said  John. 

"  Unfortunate  is  too  mild  a  word  for  my  feel- 
ings," said  Mr.  Meredith.  Then  in  his  great 


The  Banker  and  the  Bear 


excitement  he  made  a  perfectly  original  re- 
mark, — 

"  If  we  had  only  waited  another  day  —  " 

He  stopped  there,  transfixed  by  a  blasting 
look  from  his  fellow-trustee,  but  he  had  said 
enough. 

So  that  was  Sponley's  reason  for  waiting. 
As  John  thought  of  the  beautiful  shrewdness  of 
the  move,  he  smiled. 

"You  are  amused,  eh!"  roared  Mr.  Cart- 
wright.  "  I  understand  you.  You  sold  us  that 
stock  yourself,  and  when  you  have  run  the  bank 
through  a  few  more  scandals,  you  mean  to  buy  it 
back  cheap.  You  are  a  swindler  !  " 

"That  brings  our  discussion  to  an  end,  Mr. 
Cartwright,"  said  John  Bagsbury.  "  Good 
morning,  gentlemen,"  he  added,  holding  open 
the  door  into  the  hall. 

As  the  carriage  drove  away  he  walked  back 
to  his  desk  and  wrote  the  following  note  :  — 

"  DEAR  SPONLEY  :  I  have  just  learned  of  the 
sale  of  your  stock  in  our  bank  to  Messrs.  Cart- 
wright  and  Meredith.  As  you  have  no  further 
interest  in  Bagsbury  and  Company,  and  as  you 
are  opposed  to  its  present  policy,  I  suggest  that 


Conseqiiences  199 

you  hand  me  your  resignation  from  the  Board  of 
Directors.     We  shall  be  glad  to  act  upon  it  at 

once. 

"  JOHN  BAGSBURY." 

"Are  you  going  to  church  with  us,  dear?" 
asked  Alice,  from  the  doorway. 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  I'm  afraid  I'll  have  to  go 
twice.  Just  wait  a  minute  and  I'll  be  ready." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW   THE    BEAR    SPENT    SUNDAY 

SPONLEY  was  well  satisfied  with  the  course 
events  so  far  had  taken.  He  had  got  rid  of  his 
bank  stock  quietly  and  at  a  good  price,  with 
the  double  advantage  to  himself  of  an  increased 
freedom  of  movement,  and  a  greater  supply  of 
ammunition  for  his  operations  against  Picker- 
ing. But  what  pleased  him  far  more  was  this : 
he  had  taken  Harriet  almost  without  reserve 
into  his  confidence,  and  she  was,  as  she  had  been 
in  so  many  earlier  campaigns,  his  partner.  He 
remembered  how  she  had  felt  when  she  had 
learned  of  his  understanding  with  Curtin,  and 
he  had  entertained  strong  misgivings  as  to  the 
effect  which  a  revelation  of  his  present  schemes 
would  have  upon  her.  But  reflecting  that,  how- 
ever carefully  he  might  conceal  his  doings,  she 
was  sure  to  guess  at  a  great  deal,  he  had  braced 
himself  for  a  somewhat  disagreeable  scene  and 
had  told  her  —  nearly  everything. 


How  the  Bear  spent  Sunday  201 

It  was  his  last  big  fight,  he  had  said,  and 
quite  sincerely.  When  this  lard  corner  of  Pick- 
ering's was  fairly  broken,  they  would  go  out  of 
business  and  find  some  less  exacting  game  to 
play  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  To  his  surprise, 
and  to  his  infinite  relief,  she  had  entered  into 
his  plans  with  all  her  old-time  enthusiasm,  accept- 
ing with  very  good  grace  even  the  enforced  hos- 
tility with  John. 

"  It  doesn't  really  make  so  much  difference," 
she  said ;  "  neither  of  you  can  help  it.  He's 
right  from  his  point  of  view ;  but  when  it's  all 
over  he'll  see  your  side  of  it,  and  we  can  be  as 
good  friends  as  we  were  before.  I  hope,  though, 
that  your  beating  Pickering  won't  hurt  the  bank 
very  seriously." 

"I  hope  so,  too,"  he  assented,  and  again  he 
told  the  truth. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  a  messenger  boy 
brought  John's  note.  Harriet  read  it  over  her 
husband's  shoulder. 

"John  is  quick,  isn't  he  ?"  she  said. 

"  Yes ;  but  it  won't  do  him  any  good.  Wait 
a  minute,  boy,  and  I'll  give  you  an  answer." 

He  scrawled  something  on  a  sheet  of  note 
paper  and  handed  it  to  her.  It  read :  — 


2O2  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  DEAR  BAGSBURY  :  I  shall  seriously  consider 
doing  as  you  suggest. 

"  Cordially, 

"  MELVILLE  SPONLEY." 

"  That  doesn't  tell  him  too  much,  does  it  ? " 
he  asked,  smiling. 

Nevertheless  he  settled  himself  to  some 
serious  thinking.  Though  it  did  not  at  all 
disconcert  him,  John's  note  showed  him  that 
he  must  alter  his  plans.  Up  to  this  time  his 
sole  idea  had  been,  as  John  had  foreseen,  to 
rouse  the  directors  and  the  large  stockholders  in 
an  opposition  sufficiently  determined  to  compel 
the  Banker  to  drop  Pickering.  That  had  been 
his  motive  for  the  attack  on  the  bank  in  this 
morning's  Herald.  But  between  the  lines  of 
the  note  John  had  told  him  plainly  that  he  had 
fathomed  his  plans,  and  that  fully  realizing  the 
pressure  which  would  be  put  upon  him  he  was 
not  to  be  frightened  nor  coerced.  Yet  somehow 
the  bulldog  must  be  made  to  let  go. 

"  That's  the  whole  trick,"  said  Sponley,  aloud. 
"  The  minute  Bagsbury  is  put  out  of  the  fight, 
I  can  handle  Pickering.  John's  the  only  one 
I've  got  to  give  my  time  to." 


How  the  Bear  spent  Sunday  203 

"  Is  he  in  as  deeply  as  that  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Why  the  half  million  that  Pickering  got 
from  him  is  a  comparatively  small  part  of  the 
deal,  of  course;  but  he'll  give  him  the  other 
half  of  it  before  the  week's  out  if  I  know  John 
Bagsbury.  He'll  see  him  through  now,  if  he 
can.  You  see,  the  moral  effect  of  having  a  big 
bank  behind  you  is  immense.  It  counts  with 
the  outside  trading.  Do  you  remember  the 
time  I  first  met  John  —  took  him  out  to  lunch  — 
I  told  you  I  was  building  a  cyclone  cellar  in  a 
bank  ?  I  built  it  all  right,  but  the  wrong  man 
got  in. 

"  Yes,"  he  went  on  after  a  moment  of  silence  ; 
"it's  John  Bagsbury  who's  holding  up  that 
market.  When  he  gets  out  from  under,  it'll 
come  down.  You  don't  have  to  knock  out  all 
the  props,  you  know;  one'll  do  the  business." 

"  But  won't  he  have  to  if  all  the  directors  —  " 

"  Oh,  most  anybody  else  would,  but  John's 
different.  I  sized  him  up  right  the  first  time  I 
saw  him.  He  knows  what  he's  in  for,  and  he's 
decided  he'll  stay.  I'm  afraid  it'll  take  more 
than  that  Board  of  Directors  to  shake  him  out. 
The  depositors  —  " 

He  paused,  and  for  a  while  sat  thinking. 


2O4  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  If  something  should  scare  the  depositors 
into  making  a  run  on  the  bank  —  you  see  only 
about  half  its  business  is  commercial  business ; 
the  rest  is  savings.  The  big  depositors  wouldn't 
scare.  They're  stockholders  mostly,  and  they 
know  the  old  bank's  as  solid  as  a  fort.  But  if 
the  little  fellows  who've  got  their  savings  in 
there  once  get  the  idea  that  it's  shaky,  they'll 
come,  every  man,  woman,  and  child  of  "em,  and 
get  their  money  out  inside  of  twenty-four  hours. 
He'd  have  to  shut  up  for  a  while  if  they  did 
that  They  won't  scare,  though,"  he  said,  rising ; 
"and  I  don't  know  that  I'd  want  them  to.  I 
hope  the  directors'll  do  the  trick;  but  if  they 
can't,  we'll  find  some  other  way." 

He  walked  over  to  the  telephone  and  called 
up  Jervis  Curtin. 

"  You  saw  this  morning's  Herald,  I  suppose," 
he  said.  "Yes — I'm  coming  over  to  see  you 
this  afternoon.  I  had  a  small  dispute  with 
Mr.  Bagsbury  the  other  day,  and  I've  sold  out 
my  stock.  I  think  we'd  better  come  to  an 
understanding,  for  his  benefit,  as  to  what  our 
relations  have  been —  All  right — I'll  be  over 
in  about  an  hour. 

"  I'm   going   to  make   another   little  call   on 


How  the  Bear  spent  Sunday  205 

Cartwright  first,"  he  explained  to  Harriet.  "  I 
won't  be  long  at  either  place.  I'll  be  back  for 
tea." 

Mr.  Cartwright  had  taken  his  echo  home  with 
him  after  their  disastrous  interview  that  morn- 
ing, ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  consultation, 
but  in  reality  to  help  him  fulminate  against 
John.  They  were  still  doing  it  when  Sponley 
arrived,  and  between  them  they  had  worked  up 
a  fine  rage.  They  were  unaffectedly  glad  to  see 
Sponley,  and  they  showed  it  by  redoubling  the 
din  and  clamor  of  their  outcry  against  the  un- 
speakable rascality  of  the  Banker. 

Though  Sponley  had  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue 
the  word  that  would  correct  their  error,  it  looked 
for  a  while  as  though  he  would  never  have  a 
chance  to  say  it,  for  Mr.  Meredith's  coda  in- 
variably gave  Mr.  Cartwright  breath  enough 
to  begin  again.  But  at  last  there  was  a 
lull. 

"  You're  mistaken  in  thinking  that  Bagsbury 
swindled  you.  Bagsbury  is  a  perfectly  honest 
man  —  " 

"  Honest !  "  they  ejaculated. 

"Though  he  does  make  a  fool  of  himself 
sometimes.  He  did  not  sell  you  that  stock." 


206  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"He  admitted  it  —  practically,"  said  Cart- 
wright. 

"  He  could  not  deny  it,"  said  Meredith. 

"  Whatever  he  said  or  did  not  say,"  the  Bear 
went  on,  "  he  did  not  sell  you  that  stock.  I 
have  come  here  this  afternoon  because  I  have 
just  discovered  that  I  sold  it  to  you  myself." 

Sponley  might  take  as  much  time  as  he 
pleased  now  without  fear  of  interruption.  Two 
disconnected  electric  bells  lying  in  a  box  in  the 
hardware  shop  are  not  more  incapable  of  sound 
than  were  at  that  moment  the  two  old  trustees. 

"  I  need  hardly  tell  you,"  said  Sponley,  "  that 
I  had  no  such  intention.  I  put  my  stock  in 
Myers's  hands  with  no  other  instructions  than 
that  he  sell  at  once.  I  did  not  inquire  who  had 
bought  the  stock,  and  it  was  only  by  chance  that 
I  learned  to-day  that  I  had  been  so  unfortunate 
as  to  sell  it  to  you.  I  think  I  owe  it  to  you  to 
be  quite  frank  with  you  as  to  my  reason  for 
selling  out.  I  did  it  because  I  no  longer  re- 
gard Bagsbury  and  Company's  Bank  as  a  good 
investment." 

He  gave  the  words  time  to  sink  in  deep  before 
he  went  on.  "  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  it's 
extremely  dangerous,  but  it  is  not  wholly  safe. 


How  the  Bear  spent  Sunday  207 

If  anybody  is  going  to  speculate  with  my  money, 
I  want  it  to  be  myself,  not  the  president  of  a 
bank  that  I  hold  stock  in. 

"  Bagsbury's  bank  is  running  a  great  big 
speculation;  they  may  win  or  they  may  lose; 
that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  get  out  of  a 
bank  just  as  soon  as  it  goes  out  of  the  banking 
business,  and  I'm  glad  I'm  well  out  of  Bags- 
bury's. But  I  regret  that  my  profit  should  have 
been  at  your  expense." 

Mr.  Cartwright  was  trying  to  say  something, 
and  Sponley  added  quickly :  — 

"  If  I  were  in  a  position  to  take  the  stock  back 
—  but  there's  no  use  in  discussing  that.  I've 
already  put  the  money  I  got  for  it  where  I  can't 
get  it  back." 

Gradually  the  two  scared  old  gentlemen 
recovered  their  power  of  speech,  and  Sponley 
answered  their  questions,  alternately  quieting 
their  fears  by  the  assurance  that  they  would 
find  no  difficulty  in  selling  their  stock,  and 
waking  their  alarm  again  by  impressing  upon 
them  the  urgent  need  of  being  all  sold  out  by 
to-morrow  night. 

As  he  rose  to  take  his  leave,  he  said,  "  I  have 
talked  with  you  very  frankly,  because,  as  I  said, 


2O8  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

I  have  felt  that  I  owed  you  no  less  than  that, 
and  I  am  sure  you  realize  the  immense  impor- 
tance of  guarding  these  facts  most  carefully. 
Of  course,  if  anything  should  escape  concern- 
ing the  condition  of  the  bank,  the  consequences 
would  be  serious.  I  know  that  you  will  agree 
with  me  on  that  point.  I  wish  you  the  greatest 
success  in  disposing  of  the  stock." 

Sponley  had  one  more  matter  to  attend  to 
that  day,  and  then  he  would  be  prepared  for 
anything.  It  was  likely,  he  thought,  that  John 
might  become  suspicious  of  Curtin,  the  man 
Sponley  had  put  in  the  bank,  and  it  was  impera- 
tive that  Curtin  be  provided  with  some  plausible 
story  which  should  prevent  John's  taking  sum- 
mary action  and  turning  him  out  of  the  bank. 

They  discussed  the  matter  for  nearly  an  hour 
before  Sponley  was  satisfied.  "  I  guess  that'll 
do,"  he  said  at  last.  "It  doesn't  fit  together 
too  well,  and  it  doesn't  explain  everything; 
those  are  its  best  points.  If  you  take  it  to  him 
before  he  comes  to  you  and  asks  you  for  it,  he'll 
believe  you.  You'd  better  tell  him  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning.  And  the  other  thing 
you've  to  do  is  to  watch  for  a  crowd.  If  you 
see  anything  that  looks  like  a  run  on  the  bank, 


209 

let  me  know  instantly.  I'll  be  right  in  my 
office;  Stewart  and  Ray  will  do  all  my  trad- 
ing on  the  floor,  and  you  can  get  me  in  a 
second." 

"  I'll  want  to  be  pretty  careful  not  to  let  any- 
body know  that  I'm  in  communication  with  you. 
After  what  I  shall  tell  Bagsbury  to-morrow 
morning,  it'd  look  pretty  black  if  I  were  caught 
telephoning  —  " 

"  Don't  delay  for  anything,  not  if  John  Bags- 
bury's  standing  within  arm's  length  of  the  'phone. 
I've  got  to  know  of  the  run  on  the  bank  within 
two  minutes  of  the  time  it  starts." 

"  All  right,"  said  Curtin ;  "  Bagsbury's  pretty 
strong  in  his  hands,  but  I  guess  I  could  take  my 
chances  with  him." 

Sponley  nodded.  "That's  the  idea.  Well, 
I'm  going  home  to  take  things  easy.  I've  done 
a  good  day's  work  and  there's  a  big  rush  com- 
ing. Next  Sunday  I  mean  to  start  off  on  a  long 
vacation." 

The  Bear  drove  home  in  a  most  cheerful  frame 
of  mind.  Never  before  had  he  entered  on  a 
campaign  that  promised  so  well.  It  would  be 
short,  furious,  and,  he  felt  sure,  brilliantly 
successful. 


2IO  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

As  soon  as  Bagsbury's  bank  should  open  to- 
morrow, he  would  draw  all  of  his  money  out  of 
it.  Then  he  would  begin  hammering  away  at 
Pickering,  selling  him  both  cash  and  September 
lard  in  enormous  quantities.  Just  as  the  great 
bull  trader  was  weakening,  there  would  come  the 
rumor  and  in  a  moment  the  news  of  the  run 
on  the  bank.  When  that  happened,  it  would  all 
be  over  but  the  shouting  —  and  the  paying  up. 
Pickering  would  pay.  He  would  arrange  with 
his  creditors,  and  go  back  to  the  soap  business, 
and  after  a  few  years,  if  he  lived  so  long,  he 
would  try  this  same  fool  trick  again. 

And  John,  there  was  no  doubt  that  Bagsbury 
and  Company's  Bank  would  have  to  suspend  pay- 
ment.  When  they  begin  to  run  a  savings  bank, 
it  is  very  unlikely  that  they  will  stop  ;  and  unless 
they  stop,  the  closing  of  the  doors  is  simply  a 
matter  of  time. 

We  speak  of  a  bank's  credit  as  being  solid, 
but  that  is  only  a  comparative  term.  There  is 
nothing  else  which  so  light  a  touch  will  set  flut- 
tering. A  whispered  question  will  do  it ;  an 
assertion  is  unnecessary.  Just,  "  Do  you  know 
if  it's  true  that  they  are  in  trouble  ?"  A  con- 
founding of  two  similar  names  in  some  stupid 


How  the  Bear  spent  Sunday  211 

mind  will  do  it.  An  office  boy's  mistake  in 
leaving  the  "  Bank  Closed "  sign  hanging  a 
half  an  hour  too  long  in  the  door  will  do  it. 
Some  one  takes  alarm,  then  there  are  three  — 
then  twenty  —  enough  to  form  a  line,  to  attract 
attention  from  the  street,  and,  except  for  quick- 
ness, and  nerve,  and  resource,  and  luck,  on  the 
part  of  those  in  command,  there  is  no  stopping 
until  the  money  is  gone. 

Sponley  had  told  Cartwright  and  Meredith 
enough  to  start  a  run  on  any  bank ;  indeed,  as 
he  thought  it  over,  he  felt  somewhat  uneasy 
lest  he  had  done  more  than  was  necessary.  It 
would  be  rough  on  John.  Sponley  wondered  if 
it  would  break  his  nerve. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

GOOD    INTENTIONS 

As  Jack  Dorlin  drew  near  Bagsbury's  house 
that  same  Sunday  afternoon,  he  felt  a  growing 
misgiving  as  to  the  wisdom  of  going  in.  He 
had  not  seen  Dick  since  Wednesday  night, 
when  John  Bagsbury  and  Mrs.  Sponley  and 
Dick  herself  had  combined  to  bring  about  his 
utter  defeat.  Since  then  he  had  set  out  a 
dozen  times  with  the  determination  to  see  her 
at  once  and  come  to  some  sort  of  understanding 
with  her,  and  he  had  as  often  turned  back,  con- 
vinced that  some  other  time  would  suit  his  pur- 
pose better.  But  Sunday  afternoon  itself  came 
not  more  regularly  to  the  Bagsburys  than  did 
Jack  Dorlin,  and  having  told  himself  that  what- 
ever else  Dick  thought  of  him  she  must  not 
have  a  chance  to  think  that  he  was  sulky,  he 
was  now  turning  the  Bagsburys'  corner  just  at 
his  accustomed  time.  He  could  see  clearly  that 
he  should  have  come  when  he  would  have  had 


Good  Intentions  213 

more  chance  of  seeing  Dick  alone,  —  people 
were  sure  to  be  dropping  in  to-day,  —  and  when 
he  came  opposite  the  steps  he  felt  a  boyish 
impulse  to  walk  straight  by.  He  hesitated  a 
moment,  in  a  pitiable  state  of  indecision,  then 
walked  resolutely  up  the  steps. 

Simultaneously  with  his  ringing  the  bell, 
Dick  opened  the  door. 

"  I  saw  you  coming,"  she  explained,  and  there 
was  something  so  impossibly  innocent  in  her 
smile  that  Jack  wondered  if  she  had  not  also 
seen  him  trying  to  make  up  his  mind  whether 
he  would  come  or  not. 

"  Come  into  the  library,"  she  went  on.  "  I'm 
all  alone  just  now.  The  others  will  be  back 
soon,  though,  I  think." 

The  library  was  cool  and  dim,  a  grateful  re- 
lief after  the  burning  glare  of  the  street,  and 
Dick  dropped  lazily  on  the  big  sofa  where  they 
had  sat  last  Wednesday  evening;  there  was 
also  the  same  expectation  of  an  interruption 
from  John  Bagsbury.  Altogether  no  circum- 
stances could  have  been  more  favorable  to  the 
immediate  carrying  out  of  Jack's  intention  than 
these. 

"  I've  come  round,  Dick,  to  say  what  I  tried 


214  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

to  say  the  other  night.  I  fancy  you  have  already 
answered  me ;  but  I  want  to  tell  you  all  there 
is  to  tell,  and  I  want  to  be  sure  that  we  both 
understand.  I  think  we  owe  each  other  that." 

Jack  had  composed  that  introduction  on  the 
way  over,  and  had  decided  that  it  would  do.  It 
was  clear  and  dignified,  and  there  was  an  under- 
current of  pathos  which  modified  its  admirable 
reserve.  But  now  that  the  time  had  come,  he 
did  not  say  it.  Sitting  close  beside  Dick  on  the 
sofa,  he  wondered  how  he  could  have  thought 
seriously  of  speaking  such  idiocy  as  that.  What 
he  really  said  was  :  — 

"  How  do  you  keep  this  room  so  cool  ?  It's 
been  witheringly  hot  outside  for  the  last  three 
days." 

Then  he  asked  himself  why  he  would  be  such 
an  ass;  Dick  could  see  right  through  him,  he 
knew,  and  she  was  laughing  at  him.  He  looked 
at  her.  Except  for  the  tell-tale  corner  of  her 
mouth,  her  face  was  intensely  solemn ;  but  that 
lurking  dimple  completely  disconcerted  Jack. 
He  might  be  a  great  fool,  but  she  ought  not 
to  make  fun  of  him  like  this. 

"  How  has  it  been  going  down  at  the  bank  ? " 
she  asked. 


Good  Intentions  215 

"  Badly.  They've  been  losing  money."  This 
was  going  from  bad  to  worse.  Nothing  was 
further  from  his  intention  than  to  say  something 
facetious,  but  he  went  on :  "  They  think  that 
I'm  worth  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  and  as  I  figure 
it,  they've  lost  about  six  dollars  and  a  quarter 
since  Thursday  morning  by  that  arrangement." 

"  I'm  glad  you  came,"  said  Dick.  "I  wanted 
to  talk  with  you  about  the  bank.  Poor  John's 
having  a  hard  time.  Mr.  Cartwright  and  Mr. 
Meredith  have  just  bought  a  lot  of  stock,  and 
they  were  scared  by  the  story  in  the  paper  this 
morning.  John's  afraid  they'll  make  a  great 
disturbance,  and  try  to  sell  their  stock.  That 
would  give  people  a  rather  unfavorable  im- 
pression of  the  condition  the  bank  was  in, 
you  see." 

So  it  seemed  that,  though  the  bodily  presence 
of  John  Bagsbury  could  not  interrupt  him,  the 
alert  spirit  of  John  Bagsbury  was  able  to  inter- 
fere quite  as  successfully.  Dick  went  on  to  tell 
him  what  she  knew,  and  all  she  had  guessed, 
of  John's  difficulties.  At  first  Jack  listened 
patiently,  and  waited  for  her  to  finish  so  that 
he  could  take  the  conversation  back  to  where 
he  wanted  it ;  but  never  for  long  could  he  resist 


216  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

the  spell  of  her  enthusiasm,  —  he  would  take  to 
mathematics  to-morrow,  if  she  should  develop  a 
sudden  liking  for  cubic  curves,  —  and  soon  he 
was  asking  eager  questions,  and  hazarding  wild 
speculations  upon  the  probable  course  of  events 
for  the  next  two  or  three  days. 

While  they  were  talking,  there  came  to  Jack 
an  idea  that  almost  amounted  to  inspiration. 
It  struck  him  so  suddenly  as  to  suspend  his 
speech  right  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence,  and 
he  gloated  over  it  in  silence,  wondering  why  he 
had  not  thought  sooner  of  a  thing  so  obvious, 
so  easy,  and  so  entirely  satisfactory.  He  would 
carry  it  out  before  trying  again  to  tell  Dick  the 
rest  of  his  interrupted  love  story. 

In  the  old  days,  when  he  had  fancied  that  he 
loved  her,  the  telling  had  been  comparatively 
easy ;  but  now  that  she  had  become  a  part  of 
every  breath  he  drew,  he  found  the  thought  of 
telling  her  most  formidable.  He  had  hoped  in 
these  past  few  months  that  she  was  beginning 
to  care  in  a  way  very  different  from  her  old 
friendly  affection  for  him ;  but  her  behavior  since 
Wednesday  night  had  well-nigh  swept  that  hope 
away.  He  must  tell  her,  even  though  he  was 
inviting  certain  defeat,  and  hazarding  her  friend- 


Good  Intentions  217 

ship  into  the  bargain.  Yet,  with  the  idea  which 
had  come  to  him  a  moment  ago,  there  had  arisen 
the  hope  that  it  might  be,  if  he  were  to  do  some- 
thing to  prove  himself  of  material  assistance 
to  John  Bagsbury  in  his  fight,  that  this  might 
make  a  difference  with  Dick.  It  was  worth  a 
trial,  anyway. 

His  sudden  preoccupation  caused  Dick  to 
glance  at  him  curiously  once  or  twice ;  but  for 
a  little  while  she  did  not  break  in  upon  it. 
Then  she  asked  :  — 

"Are  your  plans  taking  shape  at  all?  I 
mean,  have  you  any  idea  what  you'll  go  into 
after  you  leave  the  bank?" 

He  roused  himself  sharply  and  said,  with  a 
laugh :  "  No,  I  think  I'll  stay  at  the  bank  a 
while  longer  and  collect  material  for  a  book. 
I  mean  to  write  a  biography  of  Hillsmead,  call 
it  'Wit  and  Wisdom,'  or  'The  Hillsmead  Joke 
Book.' " 

"How  immensely  funny  that  will  be,"  she 
said. 

Her  tone  was  not  encouraging  to  any  further 
jocularity;  but  Jack  had  determined  upon  his 
course,  and  he  held  to  it  manfully ;  and,  as  best 
she  could,  Dick  concealed  her  irritation.  It 


218  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

was  a  relief  to  both  of  them  when  the  Bags- 
burys  came  home. 

John  Bagsbury  was  excited,  but  he  had  done 
all  that  he  could  do,  and  he  was  going  forward 
into  the  critical  week  with  the  same  elation  that 
some  soldiers  feel  on  the  eve  of  battle.  He 
insisted  that  Jack  stay  to  tea,  and  afterward  he 
talked  for  two  solid  hours,  so  that  Alice  fairly 
forgot  to  be  sleepy,  and  Dick  and  Jack  Dorlin 
laughed  and  then  wondered,  feeling  that  never 
before  had  they  seen  John  Bagsbury  fully 
awake. 

"  Can  you  allow  me  a  holiday  to-morrow  ? 
asked  Jack,  as  he  rose  to  go.  "  I  have  some 
personal  business  that  I  feel  I  must  attend  to." 

Dick  followed  him  into  the  hall,  and,  stand- 
ing before  the  door,  barred  the  way  out.  "  What 
is  it  you're  going  to  do  to-morrow  ? "  she 
demanded. 

"  Just  a  little  matter  of  business  —  " 

"  It  isn't  curiosity.     I  really  want  to  know." 

"Why,  it's  nothing  —  "  stammered  Jack  — 
"  that  is  —  well  —  I  can't  tell  you." 

She  turned  abruptly  away  from  him  and  then 
he  heard  a  low  chuckle.  "  I  know,  I  know," 
she  said  triumphantly.  "  If  it  had  been  anything 


Good  Intentions  219 

else,  you  would  have  told  me,  and  then  how 
cheap  you'd  have  made  me  feel !  But  I  knew 
it  was  that.  I  want  to  be  in  it,  too.  Come 
around  here  to-morrow  morning  before  you  do 
anything." 

After  he  had  gone,  as  she  turned  from  the 
door,  she  met  John  Bagsbury  coming  into  the 
hall. 

"  I'm  going  up  to  bed,"  he  said.  "  I've  got 
some  big  days  coming,  and  to-morrow'll  be  one 
of  them.  Wish  me  luck,  Dick." 

"  I  do,"  she  said.  "  I  know  you'll  come  out 
all  right." 

She  held  out  her  hand  and  he  took  it  with  a 
grip  that  fairly  hurt  her. 

"  I  mean  to,"  he  answered.     "  Good  night." 

"  Did  John  say  he  was  going  to  bed  ? " 
asked  Alice,  as  Dick  entered  the  library.  "  I 
thought  from  the  way  people  have  been  flying 
around  to-day  that  there  might  be  something 
the  matter  with  the  bank ;  but  John  seemed  to 
feel  so  cheerful  to-night  that  I  guess  every- 
thing's all  right." 

"Yes,"  said  Dick.  "I  don't  believe  you 
need  worry." 

As  John  had  prophesied,  they  were  big  days 


220  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

that  followed  —  days  that  will  be  talked  about 
down  town  for  another  five  years.  Lard  had 
been  a  mystery  ever  since  early  in  May ;  the 
wise  ones  had  guessed  about  it,  and  those  who 
wished  to  appear  wise  had  repeated  their 
guesses  to  others  still  less  expert;  but  no  one 
had  really  known  anything.  But  by  Monday 
morning  everybody,  even  to  the  remotest  office 
boy,  understood  that  this  operation  was  practi- 
cally a  duel  between  Pickering,  the  Bull,  and 
Sponley,  the  Bear.  The  two  men  were  about 
equally  known  ;  they  were  supposed  to  be  nearly 
equal  in  resources  and  also  in  skill,  and  so  it 
befell  that  all  about  the  city,  and  in  other  cities, 
men  fingered  the  ribbons  of  paper  that  rattled 
painfully  out  of  the  tickers,  and  wondered  what 
would  happen. 

John  Bagsbury  spent  the  greater  part  of 
Monday  in  his  office.  On  Sunday  afternoon 
he  had  been  to  see  Dawson,  the  former  presi- 
dent of  the  Atlantic  National.  John  trusted 
him  thoroughly,  so  he  had  laid  before  him  the 
whole  situation ;  had  told  him  that  he  thought 
a  large  block  of  the  Bagsbury  stock  would  be 
offered  for  sale  next  day,  and  that  he  wished  to 
be  in  a  position  to  buy  it ;  and  Dawson  promptly 


Good  Intentions  221 

told  him  that  he  might  have  all  the  money  he 
needed  to  make  the  purchase.  So  John's  first 
move  on  Monday  morning  was  to  send  a  stock- 
broker around  to  Cartwright  and  Meredith  to 
buy  their  stock  before  it  should  be  offered  in 
open  market. 

"  Buy  it  as  cheap  as  you  can,"  he  said.  Then, 
mentioning  a  figure,  "  I  think  you  can  get  it  for 
that." 

Half  an  hour  later  the  broker  telephoned  that 
Cartwright  was  claiming  that  they  had  a  much 
better  offer,  and  asked  John  if  he  cared  to  go 
any  higher.  John  did  not  for  a  moment  believe 
that  any  one  was  bidding  against  him  for  the 
stock.  He  reflected  that  probably  the  old  trus- 
tees were  not  so  badly  frightened  as  he  had 
thought,  and  were  holding  out  for  a  good  price. 
He  told  the  broker  how  much  higher  he  might 
go,  but  cautioned  him  to  do  all  he  could  to  get 
the  stock  for  less. 

Curtin  came  into  the  private  office  a  little 
later  and  stayed  about  half  an  hour,  telling 
some  rather  damaging  things  about  Sponley, 
and  making  explanations  which  John  half  lis- 
tened to  and  but  half  believed  —  that  was  about 
the  proportion  which  Sponley  had  expected  him 


222 

to  believe  —  and  which  he  finally  cut  short. 
The  episode  irritated  him  more  than  did  the 
visits  from  directors  and  stockholders,  who  kept 
steadily  dropping  in  all  day  to  offer  him  advice 
or  remonstrance. 

He  had  expected  that,  however;  more  of  it, 
in  fact,  than  he  was  forced  to  take,  and  he  ex- 
plained and  answered  questions  with  a  patience 
that  did  him  credit.  To  everybody  he  said  that 
the  bank  was  in  excellent  shape,  that  all  the 
loans  were  amply  secured,  and  that  the  success 
or  failure  of  the  Pickering  deal  would  not  make 
the  slightest  difference  in  the  dividends.  Upon 
the  whole,  his  visitors  accepted  the  situation 
with  fairly  good  grace.  There  was  this  about 
John  Bagsbury  :  when  he  told  you  anything,  you 
knew  he  was  telling  you  the  truth. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  the  broker  telephoned 
to  him  again.  "  I  can't  get  that  stock,  Mr. 
Bagsbury,  even  at  your  highest  figure.  There's 
some  one  else  after  it.  Do  you  want  to  offer 
any  more  ? " 

John  told  the  broker  to  let  it  go  and  quit,  and 
in  his  leisure  moments  during  the  rest  of  the 
afternoon  he  wondered  a  good  deal  over  what 
this  sharp  competition  could  mean.  He  could 


Good  Intentions  223 

in  no  way  attribute  it  to  Sponley ;  but  he  was 
equally  at  a  loss  to  find  any  other  explanation. 

When  the  Bagsburys'  door-bell  rang  early 
that  evening,  John  and  Alice  were  surprised  to 
see  Dick  move  to  answer  it  herself.  They  saw 
her  walk  through  the  library,  and  then  heard 
her  run  the  length  of  the  hall. 

"They've  made  up,"  said  Alice. 

"  Who  ? " 

"  Why  Dick  and  Mr.  Dorlin,  of  course." 

"  I  didn't  know  they'd  quarrelled,"  said  John. 
"  Dick  has  seemed  pretty  cheerful,  and  she 
hasn't  said  anything  —  " 

"  Said  anything !  She  didn't  need  to  say 
anything.  They  quarrelled  Wednesday  even- 
ing, and  he  didn't  come  around  all  the  rest  of 
the  week.  And  yesterday  they  were  still  at  it. 
I  could  tell,  because  they  were  both  so  glad  to 
see  us  when  we  came  in." 

"  They've  certainly  made  up  all  right  now  —  " 

He  stopped  as  the  two  young  people  entered 
the  library.  The  instant  of  silence  told  them 
that  they  had  been  the  subjects  of  the  conver- 
sation they  had  interrupted,  and  Dick  blushed, 
first  in  embarrassment  and  then  in  vexation 
over  having  blushed.  Jack  returned  the  Bags- 


224  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

burys'  greeting  nervously.  He  was  asking  him- 
self why  he  would  be  such  an  ass  as  to  try  to 
do  things  theatrically.  He  ought  to  have  told 
John  down  at  the  office,  or  written  him  a  note. 
Well,  there  was  nothing  to  do  now  but  see  the 
thing  through. 

Then  suddenly  he  read  in  Alice's  expectant 
look  and  in  John's  quizzical  smile,  and  last  of 
all  in  Dick's  flushed  face,  the  interpretation 
that  the  Banker  and  his  wife  were  putting  upon 
this  little  scene.  That  fairly  scattered  him. 

"I  came  around  to  tell  you  — "  he  began 
wildly  —  "  to  say  that  we  —  that  is,  Dick  and 
I  have  —  " 

"We  bought  the  stock  in  the  bank  to-day  — 
what  Mr.  Cartwright  and  Mr.  Meredith  bought 
of  Mr.  Sponley." 

Dick  spoke  quickly,  but  not  an  instant  too 
soon;  another  second  and  John  would  have 
been  giving  them  his  blessing. 

At  her  words,  however,  he  dropped  back  into 
his  chair  and  looked  blankly  from  her  to  Jack 
and  back  to  her  again. 

"  You  did ! "  he  exclaimed ;  then  after  a 
moment,  "you  did!"  and  then  in  spite  of  his 
best  attempt  to  keep  a  straight  face  he  began 


Good  Intentions  225 

to  laugh.  "  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said,  when 
he  had  his  voice  under  control  again.  "  I  was 
—  surprised.  Tell  me  about  it,  please.  How 
did  you  happen  to  do  it  ? " 

Without  the  smallest  misgiving  —  for  he  at- 
tributed John's  laughter  to  the  ridiculous  mis- 
take he  had  so  nearly  made  —  Jack  told  his 
tale.  He  said  nothing  about  the  motive  which 
had  led  him  and  Dick  to  buy  the  stock,  but  he 
dwelt  with  a  good  deal  of  humor  on  the  per- 
plexities into  which  his  ignorance  of  business 
had  led  him  in  the  course  of  the  negotiations. 
He  could  afford  to  laugh  at  them  because  he 
and  Dick  had  succeeded,  in  spite  of  all,  in 
effecting  a  sale  of  a  large  part  of  their  own 
securities  and,  in  the  teeth  of  opposition,  in 
buying  the  Cartwright-Meredith  stock.  They 
had  spent  the  day  profitably  and  had  thoroughly 
enjoyed  it.  The  encounter  with  the  broker  was 
what  pleased  Jack  particularly. 

"  I  all  but  had  it  fixed,"  he  said,  "  when  this 
other  fellow  came  around  and  began  to  bid  up 
the  price.  But  after  that  they  gave  me  rather 
an  exciting  time.  I'd  make  them  an  offer,  and 
then  they'd  have  a  consultation  with  the  mys- 
terious stranger,  and  I'd  have  to  raise  it  We 


226  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

kept  it  going  until  the  middle  of  the  afternoon, 
and  then  he  quit.  I'd  have  been  there  yet  if 
he  hadn't.  The  business  roused  my  sporting 
blood  somehow ;  I  haven't  enjoyed  anything  so 
much  in  a  long  while." 

Dick  had  helped  tell  the  first  part  of  the  tale, 
eagerly  snatching  the  thread  away  from  Jack, 
and  then  handing  it  back  to  him  with,  "Oh,  I 
don't  understand  it,  you  tell  him."  But  toward 
the  end  she  became  silent,  watching  with  puz- 
zled curiosity  the  quick  changes  of  expression 
in  John  Bagsbury's  face.  When  Jack  finished, 
she  asked,  — 

"  Have  we  done  something  awfully,  absurdly 
stupid  ? " 

"  You  have  done  one  of  the  most  thoughtful, 
generous  things  I  ever  heard  of,"  said  John, 
"  and  it  was  a  good  move,  too.  Only  we've  all 
made  a  mistake  in  not  telling  each  other  just 
what  we  meant  to  do.  You  see,  I  was  the  man 
who  sent  around  that  broker." 

"  Good  Lord  !  "  said  Jack. 

Dick  began  to  laugh,  and  John  Bagsbury's 
smile  gradually  expanded  into  an  indubitable 
grin ;  but  Jack's  face  remained  as  solemn  as  an 
old  raven's. 


Good  Intentions  227 

"  Laugh !  "  Dick  commanded.  "  The  mistake 
doesn't  matter.  The  stock  is  all  in  the  fam  —  " 

She  colored,  and,  correcting  herself,  proceeded 
to  punish  Jack  for  her  slip. 

"The  stock  I  bought  is  all  in  the  family. 
Jack,  of  course,  will  vote  his  as  he  pleases." 

"  I've  put  in  quite  a  day  of  it  myself,"  said 
John,  quickly,  in  the  interest  of  peace.  "  I 
would  have  been  as  busy  as  I  care  to  be 
without  any  visitors,  and  there  was  a  regular 
procession  of  them.  And  Curtin  came  in 
for  a  long  talk,  too.  He  had  a  story  to  tell, 
mostly  about  Sponley.  Said  he  had  known 
Sponley  a  long  time,  and  that  he  had  got  him 
his  job  in  the  bank.  Then,  according  to  him, 
Sponley  tried  to  make  him  pay  for  his  place  by 
giving  away  information  about  the  bank.  He 
bought  Curtin's  stock,  it  seems,  and  then  threat- 
ened to  get  him  put  out  of  the  bank  unless  he 
did  as  he  was  told.  Curtin  says  he  told  him 
of  the  loan  to  Pickering,  thinking  it  was  all 
right  to  do  it ;  but  he  denies  having  known  any- 
thing about  the  collateral.  I  suppose  Sponley 
guessed  at  that." 

Dick  gave  her  fellow-amateur  detective  a 
look  which  said,  "  We're  saved  from  doing  any- 


228  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

thing  foolish  about  that,"  but  Jack  was  still 
thinking  about  the  outrageous  injustice  of  her 
last  remark,  and  he  affected  not  to  see. 

"  Do  you  think  he  was  telling  the  truth  ? " 
she  asked  of  John.  "  What  are  you  going  to 
do  with  him  ? " 

"  Oh,  it  was  probably  somewhere  near 
true.  I  shall  let  him  stay  till  the  year's  out. 
I  have  all  I  want  on  my  hands  just  now,  with- 
out trying  to  get  rid  of  my  officers.  If  he  had  a 
little  more  spunk,  he  might  make  a  pretty  good 
rascal;  but  as  he  is,  he  can't  do  much  harm." 

"  Do  you  know,"  the  Banker  went  on  after  a 
long  pause,  "  you  did  a  good  thing  for  the  bank 
by  bidding  up  that  stock  and  paying  a  big  price 
for  it?  It  got  Cartwright  and  Meredith  over 
their  fright  a  lot  better  than  if  you'd  bought 
it  cheap.  If  they  had  got  badly  scared  and 
talked  around,  there's  no  telling  where  they'd 
have  landed  us.  But  I  guess  there's  no  danger 
of  that  now." 

"  No,"  said  Jack.  "  They  were  as  pleased  as 
possible,  when  the  thing  was  finally  fixed  up. 
They  seemed  to  be  mighty  glad  to  be  well  out 
of  it." 

"I  wonder  — "  began  John.     He  rested  his 


Good  Intentions  229 

chin  on  his  hands  and  stared  intently  at  noth- 
ing for  a  minute,  then  he  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  I'm  going  to  see  them,"  .he  said,  rising. 

"  Now  ?  "  asked  Dick. 

"  Yes,  I'm  going  to  suggest  that  they  turn 
the  whole  estate  over  to  me." 

Not  a  word  was  spoken  in  the  library  until 
they  heard  the  door  close  behind  John  Bags- 
bury. 

"I  suppose  I'd  better  go,"  said  Jack,  without 
stirring  in  his  big  chair. 

"  Perhaps  so,"  said  Dick ;  "  we've  knocked 
about  together  all  day  —  " 

That  brought  him  to  his  feet  like  a  flash. 
"  You're  right,"  he  said.  "  Good  night." 

He  shook  hands  with  admirable  nonchalance, 
and  marched  —  he  could  not  help  marching  — 
into  the  hall. 

"  Stupid !  "  said  Dick,  just  after  he  closed 
the  door.  A  little  later  she  said  "Stupid" 
again,  but  with  an  entirely  different  inflection, 
and  with  something  a  little  like  a  laugh  on  the 
end  of  it. 

But  by  that  time  poor  Jack  was  halfway 
down  the  block,  walking  at  the  rate  of  at  least 
five  miles  an  hour. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   STARTING   OF   AN   AVALANCHE 

HOWEVER  important  a  campaign  may  be,  how- 
ever long  it  may  have  been  in  the  making,  the 
hours  which  prove  really  to  be  decisive  are  likely 
to  be  few.  The  dramatic  situation  in  the  lard 
market  was  the  outcome  of  months  of  thorough 
planning,  of  ingenious  preparation,  of  well-con- 
cealed manipulation ;  but  once  the  actual  fight- 
ing began,  and  the  whole  commercial  world 
gathered  around  to  see,  it  lasted  but  three  days 
and  a  little  way  into  the  fourth,  that  is,  from 
Monday  morning  to  an  hour  before  noon  on 
Thursday. 

Measured  by  the  volume  of  trading  done, 
Monday  was  the  heaviest  day  of  the  four. 
Sponley's  operators  on  the  floor,  Stewart  and 
Ray,  began  selling  when  the  big  bell  gave  the 
signal  at  half-past  nine,  and  until  it  rang  again, 
at  half-past  one,  there  was  no  cessation.  The 
Bear  was  explicit  in  his  instructions,  and  acting 
230 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         231 

on  these,  Stewart  and  Ray  took  a  furious  pace. 
They  sold  actual  lard,  wholly  imaginary  lard, 
grotesque  prophecies  of  lard,  which  by  no  pos- 
sibility could  be  realized ;  and  little  Mr.  Keyes, 
of  Keyes  and  Seivert,  and  tall  Mr.  Jones,  of 
Ball,  Snyder,  and  Jones,  bought  it  all,  while  the 
Old  Man,  as  they  called  Pickering,  strolled  about 
their  offices  with  an  utterly  irresponsible  air,  and 
smoked  Wheeling  stogies. 

It  was  a  great  round  they  fought  that  day ;  but 
it  is  not  so  well  remembered  as  those  that  suc- 
ceeded it,  because  at  half-past  one  the  relative 
position  of  the  combatants  was  just  what  it  had 
been  four  hours  earlier.  With  all  the  tremen- 
dous pounding  given  and  taken  that  morning, 
nothing  happened.  Neither  had  faltered  for  an 
instant,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest  founda- 
tion for  a  guess  as  to  where  the  advantage  lay. 
But  to  one  who  could  know  what  was  in  the 
minds  of  the  two  men,  it  would  be  evident  that 
Pickering  had  rather  the  better  of  the  situation, 
for  at  closing  time  he  was  just  where  he  ex- 
pected to  be  —  he  was  not  disappointed.  But 
Melville  Sponley  had  not  counted  on  an  incon- 
clusive day.  The  reinforcements  he  had  looked 
for  so  confidently  had  failed  to  come  up. 


232  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Sponley  spent  the  morning  in  his  office,  but 
he  had  lieutenants  wherever  they  could  possibly 
be  of  service,  and  he  knew  that  the  first  unfavor- 
able rumor  that  should  be  set  afloat  regarding 
Bagsbury's  bank  would  reach  him  instantly. 
But  all  the  reports  he  received  were  negative. 
The  clerk  he  had  posted  at  the  stock  exchange 
called  him  up  two  or  three  times,  but  only  to  say 
that  no  Bagsbury  stock  had  been  offered  for 
sale,  and  from  Curtin  at  the  bank  there  came 
not  a  word.  When  he  had  given  Curtin  his  in- 
structions the  day  before,  he  had  been  aware 
that  it  was  hardly  likely  that  the  rumor  of  the 
bank's  difficulties  would  spread  fast  enough  to 
develop  a  run  on  the  bank  before  closing  time 
on  Monday  ;  but  he  had  counted  confidently  on 
its  reaching  the  provision  pit  in  time  to  have  a 
decisive  effect.  The  run,  he  calculated,  would 
begin  on  Tuesday  morning.  But  all  Monday 
afternoon  he  heard  never  a  whisper,  and  by 
evening  he  began  to  wonder  if  he  had  not  made 
a  serious  mistake. 

Immediately  after  dinner  he  decided  to  learn 
what  he  could  from  Mr.  Cartwright ;  but  he  hes- 
itated whether  he  should  call  on  him  or  tele- 
phone him.  Mr.  Cartwright,  he  knew,  was  as 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         233 

yet  unreconciled  to  the  telephone,  and  regarded 
a  message  over  it  much  as  many  people  regard 
a  postal  card,  and  yet  the  other  course  seemed 
still  more  inadvisable.  If  Sponley  had  called  in 
person,  he  would,  you  remember,  have  found 
John  Bagsbury  there;  but  as  it  happened  the 
telephone  bell  in  Mr.  Cartwright's  library  rang 
only  about  six  feet  from  the  place  where  John 
was  sitting.  Mr.  Cartwright  answered  it  im- 
patiently. 

"  Oh,  good  evening,  Mr.  Sponley,"  John 
heard  him  say.  "Yes,  we  sold  all  our  stock 
this  afternoon —  Yes,  a  very  fair  price  — 
He  was  a  young  man  whose  name  escapes 
me  at  this  moment —  Yes,  thank  you  very 
much —  Good  evening." 

And  John,  with  some  difficulty,  kept  a  per- 
fectly straight  face.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
'phone  Sponley  turned  away  with  an  exclama- 
tion of  disgust. 

"  What  is  it  ?"  Harriet  asked. 

"  I'd  rather  deal  with  three  rascals  than  with 
one  fool,"  he  said  shortly,  "  and  that  Cartwright's 
an  infernal  fool." 

The  first  notable  event  at  the  bank  Tuesday 
morning  was  the  early  arrival  of  Pickering.  He 


234  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

walked  without  ceremony  into  John's  office, 
seated  himself  near  an  open  window,  and  at  once 
proceeded  to  light  a  fresh  black  stogy  from  the 
stump  of  the  one  he  had  been  smoking. 

"  I  have  to  smoke  these  as  soon  as  things  be- 
gin to  get  interesting,"  he  explained.  "  I  find 
cigars  too  tame.  I  hope  the  smell  doesn't 
bother  you." 

"  Not  a  bit,"  said  John.  "  It  would  take  more 
than  that.  I  don't  bother  easily." 

"I  don't  believe  you  do,"  Pickering's  voice 
came  from  a  cloud  of  pungent  smoke.  "  You 
don't  look  worried  to-day;  but  unless  I've  missed 
my  guess,  you've  had  to  take  a  lot  in  these  last 
days  that  would  have  worried  most  men." 

"  Is  that  a  guess  ?  "  John  asked  quickly. 

"  Nothing  else,"  said  Pickering.  "  I  haven't 
heard  any  talk.  Only  I  know  that  the  story  in 
the  Sunday  paper  of  your  having  made  me  that 
loan  must  have  thrown  some  of  your  directors 
into  fits,  and  I  thought  they  might  have  tried  to 
pass  'em  on  to  you." 

John  could  not  help  smiling  over  his  recollec- 
tion of  the  spectacle  Cartwright  and  Meredith 
had  presented  Sunday  morning,  but  he  said  :  — 

"  They've  taken  it  very  well,  upon  the  whole. 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         235 

Whatever  they  may  think  of  the  wisdom  of 
making  the  loan,  they  seem  perfectly  willing  to 
let  me  run  the  thing  through,  now  that  I'm  in  it." 

"That's  not  to  be  wondered  at,"  said  Picker- 
ing. "  You  have  a  way  about  you  that  would 
convince  most  men  that  you  can  mind  your  own 
business  better  than  they  can  mind  it  for  you. 

"  I  came  around  this  morning,"  he  went  on, 
without  waiting  for  the  Banker's  meagre  word 
of  thanks,  "  because  I  need  some  more  money." 

"How  much?" 

"  Three  hundred  thousand." 

No  man  can  spend  his  life  working  toward 
and  in  the  high  offices  of  a  bank,  as  John  had 
done,  without  losing  a  good  deal  of  his  original 
righting  instinct,  or  if  he  can,  he  is  a  danger- 
ous banker ;  the  lifelong  responsibility  for  other 
people's  money  makes  caution  a  sort  of  second 
nature.  But  not  even  a  banker,  until  he  is 
totally  unfit  for  the  business,  loses  all  his  red 
corpuscles.  John  Bagsbury  had  been  betrayed, 
had  been  challenged  to  fight,  had  been  threatened 
with  certain  defeat  if  he  would  dare  to  fight ; 
and  being  a  man,  and  a  profoundly  angry  man, 
he  was  eager  for  Sponley's  complete  overthrow. 
He  would  have  liked  to  say  to  Pickering, 


236  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"Go  ahead  and  smash  him,  and  I'll  see  you 
through." 

But  if  Pickering  had  guessed  the  existence  of 
this  feeling,  and  had  counted  it  a  circumstance 
in  his  favor,  he  had  a  mistaken  notion  of  his 

« 

man.  John  Bagsbury  might  feel  the  impulse, 
but  the  Banker  would  make  or  deny  the  loan. 

"  I  want  to  know  just  what  property  you've 
got,"  said  John. 

Pickering  took  a  slip  of  paper  from  his 
pocket.  "I  thought  you  would,"  he  said. 
"  Here's  a  schedule  of  it." 

John  laid  the  paper  on  his  desk,  and  for  some 
time  pored  over  it  in  silence.  "  I  don't  want 
any  more  lard,"  he  said  at  length ;  "  I've  got 
enough  now  to  last  quite  a  while.  And  I  don't 
want  to  go  into  the  soap  business,  either;  yet 
I  don't  see  that  I  have  much  choice  if  I  make 
the  loan.  All  your  convertible  securities  are 
pledged  already." 

Still  he  studied  the  schedule  earnestly,  and 
Pickering  was  silent.  At  last  the  Banker 
said,  — 

"  If  you  will  give  me  a  judgment  note  for  it, 
I'll  let  you  have  the  money." 

Pickering   reddened.      "  I'm  not  bankrupt," 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         237 

he  said,  "nor  going  to  be.  I'd  rather  give  a 
man  a  check  signed  in  blank  than  a  judgment 
note.  It's  as  bad  as  a  death-warrant,  with  every- 
thing filled  in  but  the  date." 

"Of  course,"  said  John,  "it  puts  you  entirely 
in  my  hands.  If  you're  afraid  of  me,  you'd 
better  not  take  the  loan.  That's  the  only 
security  I'll  take." 

Pickering  relighted  his  stogy  and  gazed 
meditatively  out  of  the  window.  "  All  right," 
he  said  at  length,  with  a  dry  laugh,  "give  me 
the  blank  and  I'll  sign  it.  I  guess  I'm  about  as 
safe  in  your  hands  as  I  am  in  my  own." 

While  he  was  making  out  the  note  there 
came  a  knock  at  the  door.  "  Mr.  Dawson  is 
here  to  see  you,  Mr.  Bagsbury,"  said  the 
cashier. 

"  Come  in,  Mr.  Dawson,"  said  John,  rising. 
"You  know  Mr.  Pickering?" 

Under  his  heavy  white  brows  Dawson's  eyes 
twinkled.  "  You  are  giving  us  plenty  to  think 
about  these  days,  Mr.  Pickering." 

He  seated  himself  heavily,  mopped  his  red 
face  with  a  redder  handkerchief,  and  ran  his 
hand  through  his  thick  white  hair.  Dawson 
had  accumulated  plenty  of  treasure  on  earth; 


238  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

but  I  think  that  all  unconsciously  he  had  been 
laying  up  a  greater  treasure  in  heaven,  if  a  life 
of  courage  and  honesty  and  the  wisest  optimism 
counts  for  anything,  and  the  long  file  of  men 
his  kindly  help  saved  from  financial  ruin  and 
worse  are  to  be  permitted  to  testify.  There 
was  no  sentimentality  about  him :  he  was  hard- 
handed  as  an  old  sailor;  but  many  a  practical 
man  of  business  to-day  can  hardly  speak  of  him 
dry-eyed. 

"  You  are  making  a  great  fight,"  he  went  on, 
still  addressing  Pickering,  "and  I  half  believe 
you  stand  a  chance  to  win." 

The  other  men  laughed.  "  I'm  more  hope- 
ful," said  Pickering.  "  I  fully  expect  to  win. 
The  Bear  took  his  pounding  badly  yesterday, 
and  to-day  I'm  making  him  sweat  to  protect  his 
margins." 

"  I'm  not  trying  to  discourage  you,"  Dawson 
answered;  "but  until  Sponley  is  actually  busted, 
and  his  accounts  are  closed  out,  the  chances 
are  always  in  his  favor.  He  makes  an  effort 
to  play  square;  but  he  plays  to  win,  and  I 
don't  believe  he  ever  went  into  a  game  of 
this  kind  without  an  extra  ace  about  him 
somewhere." 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         239 

"  He'd  better  get  it  out  of  his  sleeve  pretty 
quick,  then,"  said  the  soap-maker. 

"  He  will,"  retorted  Dawson.  "  He'll  bear 
watching — by  both  of  you. 

"You've  been  making  Mr.  Pickering  another 
loan,  I  take  it,"  he  went  on,  addressing  John 
Bagsbury. 

Both  men  nodded. 

"  In  a  way,  you're  playing  right  into  his  hand. 
He's  making  a  deliberate  attack  on  the  bank. 
He'll  stop  at  nothing,  and  the  knowledge  of  this 
second  loan  makes  his  case  stronger.  The 
moral  effect  on  the  depositors  will  be  bad.  You 
can  bet  they'll  know  about  it  before  night." 

Pickering  rose,  "Are  you  still  willing  to  let 
me  have  it,  Mr.  Bagsbury  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  John,  curtly.  "  I  told  you  you 
could  have  it.  The  loan's  good  and  the 
security's  good.  I'll  chance  it  on  the  effect." 

"  I  guess  I'd  have  done  the  same  thing  my- 
self," said  Dawson,  after  the  speculator  had  left 
the  office ;  "  still  I  can't  be  sure  it  isn't  a  mis- 
take. I  must  go  on  —  just  dropped  in  to  see  if 
you  were  in  any  trouble.  Good-by." 

A  little  later  Curtin  telephoned  over  to 
Sponley  the  news  of  the  second  loan  to  Pick- 


240  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

ering  and  of  Dawson's  visit  to  the  bank.  There 
had  been,  he  added,  no  unusual  drain  on  the 
bank,  nothing  in  the  least  resembling  the  begin- 
ning of  a  run. 

As  he  left  the  telephone  box,  he  saw  that 
John  Bagsbury's  eye  was  on  him ;  he  avoided  it, 
then  with  a  poor  affectation  of  coolness  sought 
it  again  and,  being  unsuccessful,  walked  hastily 
to  his  desk.  He  knew  John  thought  him  a  cur ; 
but  he  wondered  whether  the  president  sus 
pected  anything  else. 

The  blow  was  a  heavy  one  to  Sponley,  heavier 
than  all  the  hammering  Pickering  was  giving 
him,  and  he  took  it  hard.  The  reenforcement 
of  his  enemy  was  bad  enough,  but  it  was  not  the 
worst.  He  could  measure  it.  Dawson's  visit 
was  a  mystery.  How  much  or  how  little  it 
might  mean  he  could  not  even  guess,  but  the 
thought  that  this  tremendous  old  fighter  might 
take  a  hand  troubled  him  seriously.  And  his 
ingenious  plotting  to  start  a  run  on  the  bank 
had  evidently  failed.  Somewhere  or  other,  he 
had  made  a  bad  miscalculation. 

For  the  last  hour  or  two  of  the  trading  that 
day  Sponley's  plight  was  desperate.  Pickering 
was  indeed  making  him  sweat;  but  the  Bear's 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         241 

nerve  was  not  shaken,  and  he  fought  furiously. 
Twice  he  was  within  two  minutes  of  being  sold 
out ;  but  both  times  he  was  able,  though  barely, 
to  put  up  his  margins.  When  the  closing  bell 
rang,  and  he  was  safe  for  another  twenty  hours, 
he  went  to  the  nearest  cafe  and  drank  enough 
whiskey  to  make  his  attendant  stare  at  him ;  and 
then  with  steady  hands  and  lips,  and  the  old 
purposeful  look  in  his  eye,  he  went  out  and 
drove  straight  home. 

"  Shall  you  want  the  carriage  again  this  after- 
noon, sir  ? "  asked  the  coachman,  when  they 
reached  the  house. 

"  I  think  in  about  an  hour." 

Still  the  man  hesitated,  holding  the  impatient 
horses  which  had  started  to  move  off  toward  the 
stable.  He  had  worked  for  Sponley  for  fifteen 
years,  and  he  felt  a  profound  admiration  for 
him.  He  knew  that  something  troubled  his 
employer,  and  he  was  halting  on  the  brink  of 
taking  a  liberty. 

"  Well,"  said  Sponley,  "  what  is  it  ? " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir ;  I  hope  nothing  has 
gone  wrong." 

"  Nothing,"  Sponley  spoke  shortly.  It 
annoyed  him  to  think  that  he  was  showing 


242  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

the  effect  of  the  pounding  he  had  taken  that 
day.  He  turned  to  go  into  the  house,  then 
stopped  and  called  after  the  man:  — 

"Wait  a  minute.  Haven't  you  got  what 
money  you've  saved  in  Bagsbury's  bank  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  I  guess  you'll  do  well  to  take  it  out  first 
thing  to-morrow  morning.  I  don't  know  that 
they're  going  to  fail,  but  you'd  better  be  on  the 
safe  side." 

He  dismissed  the  man  with  a  nod  and  went 
in  to  the  telephone.  He  called  up  the  Herald 
building  and  asked  for  Mr.  Hauxton.  "  Can 
you  come  out  to  my  house  at  once,  on  a  matter 
of  some  importance  ?  "  he  asked.  "  It's  not  the 
sort  of  thing  I  want  to  discuss  over  the  'phone." 

The  financial  man  on  the  Herald  is  an  im- 
portant person,  unused  to  being  telephoned 
for  in  that  summary  way;  but  to  this  request 
of  Sponley's  he  replied  with  alacrity. 

The  Bear  greeted  him  with  impressive 
cordiality. 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  to-day,  Mr. 
Hauxton  ? "  he  asked  when  they  were  seated, 
"anything  that  leads  you  to  think  that  Bags- 
bury's bank  is  in  trouble  ?  " 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         243 

The  financial  reporter  mopped  his  bald  spot, 
and  then  taking  off  his  spectacles  he  wiped 
them  nervously. 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  of  that  sort,  Mr. 
Sponley  ? " 

A  man  may  attain  to  certain  great  eminences, 
may  be  a  constitutional  lawyer,  or  an  arch- 
bishop, and  still  an  easy  prey  to  cozenage  and 
false  speaking,  but  he  can  never  be  the  finan- 
cial man  on  a  great  newspaper.  Hauxton, 
peering  wistfully  through  his  powerful  spec- 
tacle lenses,  could  see  through  the  skin  of  the 
fair-seeming  apple  of  truth,  even  to  the  very 
worm  at  the  core.  You  would  gain  nothing 
by  telling  an  ordinary  cock-and-bull  story  to 
him ;  it  would  never  go  beyond  his  ears. 

Yet,  knowing  all  this,  Sponley  settled  con- 
fidently to  his  task.  He  did  not  try  to  con- 
vince the  reporter  that  the  bank  was  really  in 
a  dangerous  condition;  he  did  not  want  him 
to  believe  that.  And  there  was  no  question 
of  Hauxton's  actually  printing  anything  in  the 
paper.  Hauxton  held  his  highly  salaried  posi- 
tion because  he  held  the  confidence  of  the  big 
financial  men  about  the  city,  and  he  held  their 
confidence  because  they  knew  he  could  hold 


244  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

his  tongue.  Discretion  was  his  stock  in  trade. 
But  if  Sponley  could  excite  his  curiosity  suffi- 
ciently to  set  him  to  making  inquiries  here 
and  there  as  to  the  truth  or  the  bare  existence 
of  a  rumor  that  the  bank  was  in  trouble,  that 
was  enough  for  the  Bear.  The  rumor  would 
exist  by  the  time  Hauxton  had  asked  three 
men  if  there  were  a  rumor;  and  inside  of 
twenty-four  hours  it  would  prove  itself  true. 

Sponley  made  very  light  of  what  little  in- 
formation he  had,  professed  to  discredit  it 
utterly,  and  said  finally  that  he  should  have 
paid  no  attention  to  it,  or  should  have  referred 
it  straight  to  headquarters,  except  that  his 
present  operations  in  lard  put  him  in  an  atti- 
tude of  apparent  hostility  to  the  bank,  and  that 
he  didn't  care  to  go  there  on  such  an  errand. 
He  could  see  that  he  was  impressing  Hauxton  ; 
by  the  time  he  finished,  the  tip  of  the  reporter's 
long  pointed  nose  seemed  fairly  to  twitch  and 
to  twinkle  with  excited  curiosity. 

"You'd  better  be  very  careful  whom  you 
ask  about  it,"  said  the  Bear.  "  It's  easy  enough 
to  start  people  talking  just  that  way.  I'd  go 
right  to  one  of  the  officers  of  the  bank  first, 
if  I  were  you." 


The  Starting  of  an  Avalanche         245 

Hauxton  laughed.  "  I  don't  exactly  relish 
the  idea  of  asking  Bagsbury  if  it's  true  that 
his  bank  is  likely  to  have  to  suspend.  They 
say,  you  know,  that  he's  never  lost  his  temper 
but  twice,  and  that  he  didn't  quite  kill  his  man 
either  time.  Once  was  when  Drake  went  to 
him  to  get  a  loan  for  that  skate  Suburban 
Rapid  Transit.  He  offered  Bagsbury  a  com- 
mission, and  at  that  Bagsbury  got  up,  took  him 
by  the  arm,  marched  him  to  the  head  of  the 
stairs,  and  said  he  didn't  know  whether  to  kick 
him  down  or  not.  Drake  thought  he  meant 
to,  though,  and  jumped  halfway  and  rolled 
the  rest.  He  was  black  and  blue  for  two  weeks. 
And  the  other  time  was  when  Smith  tried  to 
blackmail  him.  Bagsbury  bent  him  backward 
over  a  table  and  nearly  brained  him.  He  got 
off  alive,  too ;  but  I  might  not  be  so  lucky." 

Sponley  knew  that  Hauxton  was  speaking 
in  jest,  but  he  answered  seriously  :  — 

"  Oh,  Bagsbury  can't  afford  to  lose  his  tem- 
per these  days,  and  he'd  treat  you  all  right, 
anyway ;  but  I  think  you'd  get  more  out  of  one 
of  the  other  officers.  I  think  Curtin's  your 
man.  He  may  refuse  to  talk,  or  he  may  lie  to 
you,  but  he's  no  good  at  concealing  the  facts." 


246  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

As  soon  as  Hauxton  took  his  leave,  Sponley 
called  up  Curtin  on  the  telephone.  Just  as 
Curtin  answered  the  call,  Harriet,  who  had 
heard  Hauxton  go  out,  entered  the  room,  and 
Sponley  was  forced  to  give  his  instructions  to 
the  assistant  cashier  in  her  hearing. 

"  I  just  sent  Hauxton  of  the  Herald  over  to 
see  you.  He'll  ask  you  if  it's  true  that  the 
bank's  in  trouble.  You'll  deny  it,  of  course. 
Deny  it  vigorously  as  you  can.  Do  you  under- 
stand?" 

Then  after  a  word  of  greeting  to  Harriet,  he 
telephoned  to  Mr.  Meredith. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  might  be  alarmed  over 
the  rumors  that  have  been  going  about  this 
afternoon  concerning  Bagsbury's  bank.  I  don't 
think  there's  anything  to  be  afraid  of.  They 
may  have  some  temporary  difficulty,  but  they're 
sure  to  come  out  all  right.  If  any  one  speaks 
to  you  about  it,  you'll  be  quite  safe  in  denying 
that  there's  any  serious  difficulty,  and  you'll 
be  doing  Bagsbury  a  good  turn.  When  people 
get  to  talking,  it  sometimes  plays  the  very 
devil  with  a  bank —  Not  at  all.  Good-by." 

You  can  see  that  Dawson  was  right  about 
the  extra  ace. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HARRIET 

SPONLEY  talked  to  Mr.  Meredith  somewhat 
longer  than  was  strictly  necessary;  and  when 
there  was  nothing  more  to  say,  he  still  delayed 
a  little  in  hanging  up  the  receiver.  He  could 
not  decide  just  what  he  had  best  say  to  Harriet 
when  he  turned  away  from  the  telephone.  To 
some  ears  his  messages  would  have  sounded 
innocent  enough,  but  Harriet  was  different; 
still  he  could  not  be  sure  that  she  had  listened 
at  all. 

As  he  rang  the  bell  for  disconnection,  he 
fancied  he  heard  a  movement  in  the  room,  and 
when  he  turned  to  speak  to  her,  Harriet  was 
gone.  He  called  her  name,  but  there  was  no 
answer,  and  while  he  listened  for  it,  he  thought 
he  heard  her  step  on  the  stairs.  Considerably 
surprised,  though  somewhat  relieved  at  having 
his  awkward  explanation  deferred  for  a  moment, 
he  went  out  into  the  hall  and  again  called  to 
247 


248  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

her,  but  still  there  was  nothing  to  show  him 
that  she  had  heard,  though  there  had  been 
hardly  time  for  her  to  get  quite  out  of  ear-shot. 
He  walked  part  way  up  the  stairs,  hesitated, 
and  finally  turned  back ;  then,  after  ringing  for 
his  carriage,  he  went  out. 

He  had  enough  on  his  mind  during  the 
next  few  hours  without  thinking  of  Harriet  or 
trying  to  explain  her  apparently  unaccountable 
behavior. 

Harriet  would  not  have  listened  to  the  mes- 
sages he  had  sent  over  the  telephone  if  the  first 
word  he  said  as  she  entered  the  room  had  not 
been  the  name  of  Curtin.  Harriet  hated  Curtin 
exactly  as  she  hated  a  rat,  and  equally  strongly 
she  loathed  the  thought  of  Melville  Sponley's 
association  with  him.  In  all  the  months  since 
it  had  begun  she  had  never  been  able  to  con- 
quer that  feeling  or  even  to  conceal  it  from  her 
husband.  So  she  listened  to  the  enigmatical 
instructions,  and  was  so  fully  occupied  in  won- 
dering what  they  might  mean  that  she  did  not 
catch  the  import  of  Sponley's  message  to  Mr. 
Meredith  until  just  as  he  was  at  the  end  of  it. 
Then  it  suddenly  came  over  her  that  her  hus- 
band, who  always  knew  so  well  the  effect  his 


Harriet  249 

words  would  have,  must  be  aware  that  what  he 
was  saying  to  poor,  timorous  Mr.  Meredith  was 
anything  but  reassuring.  The  full  meaning  of 
the  move  was  not  then  apparent  to  her;  but 
with  the  first  dim  perception  of  it  came  the 
feeling  that  she  must  be  alone,  and  without 
trying  to  resist  it  or  to  account  for  it,  she  had 
literally  fled  upstairs.  Before  she  reached  her 
room  she  regretted  having  yielded  to  the  impulse, 
and  after  standing  a  moment  irresolute,  she 
turned  to  go  back.  When  he  called  to  her  the 
second  time,  she  tried  to  answer,  but  could  not 
command  her  voice,  so  taking  from  a  drawer  a 
fresh  handkerchief  which  should  serve  as  the 
excuse  for  her  flight,  she  walked  back  to  the 
head  of  the  stairs;  just  as  she  reached  it,  she 
heard  her  husband  go  out.  With  a  feeling 
of  relief  at  being  left  alone,  she  threw  her- 
self upon  her  bed,  and  for  a  long  time  she  lay 
there,  staring  at  the  ceiling  and  trying  not  to 
think. 

As  Dawson  had  suggested,  Melville  Sponley 
had  a  strong  preference  for  truth  and  fair  deal- 
ing whenever  they  were  practicable ;  but  it  will 
not  be  imagined  that  in  the  course  of  a  quarter 
century  of  commercial  privateering  he  had  not 


250  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

many  times  committed  acts  as  irregular  and  as 
immoral  —  I  am  not  speaking  of  commercial 
morality  —  as  this  attempt  to  wreck  Bagsbury's 
bank.  He  had  concealed  none  of  these  things 
from  her,  and  she  had  heard  of  them  and  taken 
her  part  in  them  with  such  entire  equanimity 
that  he  had  quite  naturally  been  surprised  at 
her  outburst  when  she  had  first  learned  of  his 
putting  Curtin  in  the  bank  as  a  spy  upon  John. 

Harriet  looked  upon  life  from  a  thoroughly 
unmoral  point  of  view.  Of  abstract  right  and 
wrong  she  had  little  conception.  So  long  as 
Sponley's  operations  were  directed  against  men 
she  did  not  know,  except  as  her  husband's 
opponents,  she  never  applied  the  criterion  of 
fair  play.  But  all  that  was  changed  as  soon  as 
John  Bagsbury  was  concerned  in  the  fighting. 
She  regarded  him  almost  as  a  brother,  her  loy- 
alty to  him  was  only  less  than  her  loyalty  to  her 
husband,  and  the  mere  suspicion  of  what  Sponley 
had  been  doing  that  afternoon,  of  the  meaning 
of  his  talk  with  Hauxton  and  of  his  two  tele- 
phone messages,  was  intolerable. 

About  an  hour  after  Sponley  went  out,  the 
butler  knocked  at  her  door.  "  Mr.  Curtin  is 
here,"  he  said,  "to  see  Mr.  Sponley.  He  says 


Harriet  251 

it  is  important  and  wishes  to  know  when  Mr. 
Sponley  will  be  back." 

Harriet  said  that  she  knew  nothing  about  it, 
but  presently  the  man  returned,  saying  that  Mr. 
Curtin  wished  to  see  her.  She  asked  to  be 
excused,  but  Curtin  was  persistent,  and  once 
more  the  butler  came  back,  this  time  with  a 
message. 

"  He  says,  will  you  please  tell  Mr.  Sponley 
when  he  comes  in  that  Mr.  Curtin  has  seen  Mr. 
Hauxton  and  is  sure  he  has  started  him  off  on 
the  right  track." 

"  I  will  take  no  message,"  said  Harriet,  impa- 
tiently. "If  Mr.  Curtin  wishes  to  leave  any 
word  for  Mr.  Sponley,  he  may  write  a  note. 
Don't  come  back  again,  whatever  Mr.  Curtin 
says." 

But  though  the  servant  obeyed  her,  Harriet 
could  not  banish  Curtin  from  her  thoughts. 
She  had  always  hated  him,  even  before  he  had 
given  her  cause.  His  covert  admiration  was 
almost  nauseating,  and  his  miserable  makeshift 
excuses  for  seeking  her  company  "when  he  knew 
that  she  could  barely  tolerate  him  exasperated 
her.  She  recalled  with  disgust  the  evening 
when  he  had  forced  himself  into  their  dining 


252  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

room,  and  she  wondered  that  his  accusation  of 
her  husband  had  affected  her  as  it  did;  she 
wished  now  that  Sponley  had  sent  him  to 
prison. 

His  message,  though  she  had  declined  to  re- 
ceive it,  and  though  she  tried  not  to  think  of  it, 
went  over  and  over  in  her  thoughts,  and  in  spite 
of  herself  she  wondered  what  it  meant.  What 
could  "the  right  track  "mean  except  the  sus- 
picion that  the  bank  was  in  trouble  ?  Why 
should  her  husband  wish  Hauxton  to  entertain 
that  suspicion  unless  he  was  deliberately  plan- 
ning to  ruin  John  Bagsbury?  If  he  were  — 

But  this  guessing,  she  told  herself,  was  non- 
sense, useless  nonsense.  When  her  husband 
came  home,  she  would  tell  him  just  what  she 
suspected  and  ask  him  to  show  her  everything. 
He  would  surely  set  her  mind  at  rest.  Then 
with  a  sharp  sensation  of  pain  she  realized  that 
she  would  not  be  able  to  believe  his  word. 
While  he  talked  to  her,  while  he  was  with  her, 
she  would  be  convinced  that  his  course  was 
not  dishonorable,  —  and  it  was  that  conviction 
rather  than  the  truth  that  she  wanted,  —  but 
with  the  next  morning,  when  she  was  alone, 
waiting  to  learn  what  was  happening,  to-day's 


Harriet  253 

fears  and  to-day's  distrust  would  come  back 
again  stronger  than  ever.  No,  she  could  not 
look  to  him  for  help.  She  must  fight  out  this 
battle,  this  last  battle  —  alone. 

Going  to  her  desk  she  pencilled  a  little 
note :  — 

"  Will  you  please  excuse  me  if  I  don't  come 
down  to  dinner?  Don't  bother  about  it,  it's 
nothing  serious.  I'm  tired  —  that's  all  —  and 
I'm  trying  to  get  a  long  rest." 

Then  she  called  her  maid.  "  I'm  not  going 
down  to  dinner.  I  wish  you'd  give  this  to  Mr. 
Sponley  when  he  comes  in."  As  she  gave  the 
note  to  the  maid,  their  fingers  touched.  "  How 
cool  your  hands  are !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  Don't  go 
just  yet.  I  want  them  on  my  forehead.  Why 
are  your  hands  so  cold,  child  ?  " 

"Your  head  is  very  hot,"  the  maid  answered. 
"  I  think  that  is  the  reason." 

"They  feel  cool,  anyway,"  said  Harriet. 
"  There,  that  will  do.  I'm  a  great  deal  better 
already." 

"  Shall  I  bring  you  anything  —  anything  to  eat 
or  a  cup  of  tea  ? " 

"  I  think  I  should  like  some  coffee,"  Harriet 
answered,  after  a  moment's  reflection.  "  Oh, 


254  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

and  anything  to  eat  that  you  please;  I  don't 
want  to  think  about  it." 

Harriet  regretted  her  decision  the  moment 
the  maid  was  fairly  out  of  the  room;  she 
needed  company,  not  something  to  eat.  At  the 
end  of  ten  minutes  she  was  wondering  impa- 
tiently why  the  maid  did  not  come  back,  and 
her  uneasiness  grew  steadily  greater  during  the 
half  hour  that  elapsed  before  she  heard  the 
familiar  step  outside  her  door.  But  the  repri- 
mand that  was  on  Harriet's  lips  was  checked 
by  the  look  of  misery  in  her  attendant's  face. 
Neither  spoke,  and  there  was  silence  until,  as 
the  girl  spilled  some  of  the  coffee  she  was  try- 
ing to  pour,  and  then  dropped  the  cup,  she 
burst  out  crying. 

"  Oh,  don't  cry,  don't  cry ! "  said  Harriet, 
easily ;  "  that  doesn't  matter.  But  you  shouldn't 
have  stopped  to  quarrel  with  James.  That 
always  makes  you  unhappy  afterward,  you 
know." 

"  I  didn't,  I  haven't  —  quarrelled  with  him  — 
since  yesterday  morning." 

Harriet  smiled.  "You  aren't  going  to  tell 
me  that  James  has  at  last  got  up  heart  enough 
to  scold  you.  You  ought  to  be  glad  if  he  has. 


Harriet  255 

It's  very  good  for  people  to  be  scolded  when 
they  are  young ;  but  I've  never  been  able  to  do 
it." 

But  the  girl  refused  to  be  comforted,  and 
Harriet  saw  that  here  was  something  more 
serious  than  the  almost  daily  lovers'  quarrels 
which  had  been  affording  her  so  much  enter- 
tainment in  the  past  few  months. 

"Stop  crying,"  she  commanded  quietly,  "and 
try  to  tell  me  just  what  the  trouble  is." 

With  an  effort  the  girl  controlled  herself. 
"James  is  going  to  lose  all  his  money,  the 
money  he  saved  up  so  we  could  get  married. 
It's  in  the  bank,  and  he  says  the  bank  is  going 
to  fail." 

"  What  bank  is  it  in  ? " 

"Mr.  Bagsbury's."  Her  voice  failed,  and 
with  a  sob  she  buried  her  face  in  her  hands. 

"  Stop  it,"  Harriet  commanded,  almost 
roughly.  She  laid  her  hand  on  the  girl's  arm. 
"You  are  very  foolish  to  be  frightened.  The 
bank  isn't  going  to  fail.  Do  you  understand  ? 
I  tell  you  it  isn't  going  to  fail.  Who  —  "  and 
now  it  was  her  voice  that  halted  in  the  throat 
—  "  who  told  James  that  it  would  ? " 

"The  coachman  told  James,  and  he  said  —  " 


256  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

But  Harriet  knew  who  had  told  the  coach- 
man before  the  bewildered  maid  had  time  to 
speak  the  name. 

For  a  little,  though  Harriet's  words  had  quite 
reassured  her,  the  mere  impetus  of  her  emotion 
kept  the  girl  whimpering,  her  face  still  buried 
in  her  hands;  but  when  she  looked  up  the 
change  that  had  come  over  her  mistress  startled 
her  out  of  the  very  recollection  of  it. 

"  What  is  it  ? "  she  cried,  "  what  is  the  matter  ? " 

"  Nothing  at  all.  Only  go  away ;  I  want  to 
be  by  myself." 

"  But  you  are  sick,"  the  maid  persisted ; 
"  can't  I  get  you  something  ?  Shall  I  call 
Mr.  Sponley?" 

"Certainly  not,"  Harriet  spoke  slowly  and 
evenly;  "there  is  nothing  the  matter;"  but 
her  affected  composure  vanished  as  the  girl 
still  hesitated  at  the  door.  "  Oh,  why  won't 
you  leave  me  alone !  Go,  I  tell  you !  Go  !  " 

The  frightened  maid  ran  out  of  the  room,  and 
Harriet  closed  the  door  behind  her. 

So  now  she  knew.  Oh,  why  was  it  all  so 
hopelessly  evident!  She  had  been  trying  to 
comprehend;  but  now  she  clasped  her  hands 
over  her  dry  eyes  as  if  to  blot  out  the  clear, 


Harriet  257 

cruel  understanding  that  had  come  to  her  of 
her  husband's  devious  strategy.  It  was  bad 
enough  that  the  temptation  of  a  promising 
campaign  should  have  led  him  to  turn  upon 
his  friend ;  but  why  —  why  should  it  not  have 
been  fair  open  fighting ;  why  need  it  come  to  a 
piece  of  loathsome  treachery  like  this  blow  from 
behind  ?  She  must  stand  by  and  see  it  struck ; 
and  then  for  always,  she  told  herself,  she  must 
despise  the  author  of  it 

In  that  hour  Harriet  felt  the  very  foundation 
of  her  world  trembling  under  her.  She  had 
no  children,  no  friends,  no  interests  but  his, — 
nothing  but  her  absolute  devotion  to  Melville 
Sponley.  And  stanch  as  that  was,  the  stroke 
he  was  aiming  at  John  Bagsbury  would  cut  to 
the  root  of  it. 

She  recalled  that  evening  when  first  she  had 
heard  of  his  understanding  with  Curtin,  and 
when  she  had  asked  him  if  there  was  anything 
that  counted  with  him  beside  his  one  great 
ambition ;  whether  his  friendship  for  John  and 
his  affection  for  her  were  anything  more  than 
good  investments.  She  had  her  answer  now. 

Her  first  comfort  came  with  the  thought  that 
it  had  not  always  been  so.  There  had  been  a 


258  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

time  when  he  cared,  and  as  she  was  thinking  of 
the  time  gone  by  she  found  his  defence. 

It  would  not  have  weighed  heavily  with  a 
jury  of  his  peers;  to  an  impartial  mind  it 
would  hardly  have  been  a  defence  at  all,  but 
in  her  eyes  it  saved  him. 

Her  very  knowledge  of  the  game  he  had 
played  this  score  of  years,  the  knowledge  that 
had  enabled  her  to  discover  his  contemplated 
treachery,  was  what  now  furnished  his  justi- 
fication. Being  a  mere  spectator  and  under- 
standing his  moves  had  hardened  her,  she 
knew,  and  had  already  made  an  old  woman 
of  her.  And,  she  argued,  it  was  small  wonder 
that  he  who  had  played  the  game,  had  fought 
the  battles,  should  have  become  hard,  and  that 
the  long  straining  of  his  eyes  toward  one  object 
should  have  blinded  him  to  every  other  con- 
sideration. He  was  not  himself,  for  in  this  last 
campaign  the  fever  was  in  his  blood,  and  his 
going  to  any  length  to  win  was  as  inevitable  as 
his  regret  afterward  would  be  unavailing. 

Mercifully  blind  to  the  pathetic  weakness  of 
the  plea,  and  unconscious  of  the  confession  of 
its  weakness  that  lay  in  her  much  protesting, 
she  told  herself  that  it  was  not  his  fault. 


Harriet  259 

He  was  making  his  last  fight ;  this  temptation 
that  beguiled  him  would  be  the  last.  If  only  she 
could  save  him  from  its  consequences  ! 

For  a  moment  she  entertained  the  notion  of 
going  to  him,  but  she  saw  that  even  if  she 
could  turn  him  it  would  be  too  late.  Not  even 
his  wonderful  ingenuity  could  avert  the  ruin  it 
had  been  exercised  to  provoke.  But  perhaps 
there  was  yet  time  to  warn  John  and  to  save 
the  bank. 

Then  in  a  second  her  resolve  was  taken. 

She  had  on  a  thin  house  dress,  and  with  the 
idea  of  putting  on  something  better  suited  for 
street  wear  in  this  summer  evening,  she  tugged 
impatiently  at  its  fastenings,  but  her  shaking 
fingers  would  not  obey  her  will.  She  dared  not 
call  her  maid,  for  after  what  had  happened  an 
hour  before,  the  girl  would  be  certain  to  protest 
against  her  going  out,  and  might  tell  her  hus- 
band. She  must  go  as  she  was.  With  a  quick 
motion  she  partly  rearranged  her  disordered 
hair,  and  pinning  on  a  hat,  any  hat,  and  seizing 
her  purse,  she  sped  softly  down  the  stairs,  and 
without  being  observed  she  reached  the  street. 
She  hesitated  for  an  instant,  then  set  out  reso- 
lutely for  the  nearest  elevated  station. 


260  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

For  months  a  fear  had  been  following  her 
which  she  had  never  dared  to  look  at  squarely, 
to  which  she  had  even  been  afraid  to  give  a 
name.  Sometimes  it  had  been  almost  upon  her, 
and  sometimes  so  far  behind  that  she  had 
thought  it  could  never  overtake  her  again. 
When  it  was  at  her  heels,  she  stayed  within 
doors;  for  the  very  thought  of  a  crowd,  or 
of  revolving  wheels,  was  terrifying.  At  such 
times  she  told  herself  that  she  dared  not  look 
over  the  banister  rail  in  her  own  upper  hall, 
and  fancied  that  her  familiar  servants  eyed  her 
curiously  and  whispered.  A  physician  would 
have  given  her  morbid  fancies  a  name  common 
enough  in  medical  practice  nowadays,  and 
would  have  told  her  that  she  was  as  safe  on  a 
high  place  or  in  a  crowd  or  beside  the  railroad 
tracks  as  anybody  else.  But  to  Harriet,  her 
disease  was  simply  a  nameless,  indeterminate 
horror,  which  brought  with  it  the  melancholy 
foreboding  that  in  some  season  of  stress  it  was 
certain  to  conquer  her. 

In  her  new  excitement  this  old  dread  had 
been  forgotten,  save  in  her  momentary  nervous- 
ness when  she  found  herself  alone  in  the  street. 
She  reached  the  station  without  experiencing 


Harriet  261 

even  the  fear  that  she  would  be  afraid.  But 
the  platform  was  crowded,  and  she  grew  a 
shade  paler  as  she  was  pushed  and  jostled  close 
to  the  edge,  and  the  reflection  of  the  lights  from 
the  gleaming  steel  rails  wakened  a  terror  which 
was  all  the  sharper  because  she  knew  it  was 
perfectly  irrational.  When  she  saw  the  head- 
light of  the  train  growing  bigger  and  brighter 
out  of  the  distance,  she  tried  to  step  back,  and 
failing  that,  her  fear  mastered  her  completely, 
and  she  clutched  for  support  at  the  person  who 
stood  beside  her.  When  the  train  came  jolting 
to  a  stop,  the  screaming  of  the  brakes  sounded 
to  her  ears  like  an  articulate  human  cry,  and  in 
fancy  she  saw  a  woman's  body  mangled  under 
the  trucks.  She  did  not  know  that  she  had 
stood  hesitating,  blocking  the  way  for  all  the 
impatient  passengers  behind  her,  until  the 
exasperated  guard  had  taken  her  arm  and 
fairly  thrust  her  into  the  car;  but  when  the 
horrible  vision  left  her  eyes,  and  she  again 
became  conscious  of  her  present  surroundings, 
she  knew  that  she  must  have  done  something 
out  of  the  ordinary,  for  everybody  in  the  car 
who  could  see  was  staring  at  her. 

It  was  nearly  nine  o'clock  before,   Sponley 


262  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

came  home  after  an  arduous  and  only  partially 
successful  quest.  It  is  one  of  the  perversities 
of  finance  that  when  a  man  has  plenty  of 
money,  people  will  crowd  around  him,  beseech- 
ing him  to  use  theirs  also ;  but  when  he  needs  it, 
when  he  really  must  have  it,  they  look  at  him 
from  the  corners  of  their  eyes  and  sidle  away. 
After  one  or  two  flat  failures,  however,  the 
Bear  had  succeeded  in  misleading  some  people 
into  coming  to  his  help.  He  had  not  got  as 
much  as  he  wanted ;  but  enough,  with  luck  and 
with  the  reinforcement  the  run  at  Bagsbury's 
would  give  him,  to  last  him  through  another 
day. 

He  had  already  dined,  so,  after  reading  Har- 
riet's note,  he  settled  himself  in  the  library  to 
the  enjoyment  of  a  cigar.  It  was  a  point  of 
pride  with  him,  that  once  his  day's  work  was 
done,  he  could  completely  banish  its  cares  from 
his  thoughts ;  and  he  had  a  hearty  contempt  for 
all  the  amusements  in  which  weaker  spirits  are 
wont  to  seek  that  diversion,  which  with  him 
was  simply  a  matter  of  will.  But  to-night,  after 
an  uneasy  ten  minutes,  he  took  up  "  The  Count 
of  Monte  Cristo,"  and  tried  to  read. 

Half  an  hour  later  the  library  door  was  flung 


Harriet  263 

open  without  ceremony,  and  Harriet's  maid 
spoke  his  name. 

"  What  is  it  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Mrs.  Sponley —  "  the  girl  began,  but  there 
her  excitement  and  fright  choked  her. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  he  repeated.  "  Here,  stop 
that  nonsense  and  tell  me." 

"  She's  gone,"  at  length  she  managed  to  say. 
"  She  isn't  in  her  room,  and  she  isn't  anywhere. 
She's  gone." 

What  a  mask  that  thick,  swarthy  face  could 
be !  Now  it  changed  not  at  all,  save  that  the 
eyes  grew  narrower  and  he  frowned  impatiently. 

"  What  you  say  would  be  very  interesting  if 
I  did  not  know  it  already.  Mrs.  Sponley  is 
at  Mrs.  Bagsbury's.  She  left  me  a  note  saying 
that  she  meant  to  spend  the  evening  there. 
Don't  be  so  hasty  in  your  conclusions  another 
time." 

He  nodded  in  the  direction  of  the  door  and 
turned  back  to  his  book.  Before  the  maid  was 
fairly  out  of  the  room  it  occurred  to  him  that  the 
explanation  he  had  given  her  was  probably  true, 
after  all.  He  went  quickly  to  the  telephone. 
Then,  suddenly  changing  his  mind,  he  rang  for 
a  cab. 


264  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Drive  to  the  elevated  as  fast  as  you  can," 
he  ordered  shortly.  "  I'm  in  a  hurry." 

For  all  his  efforts  it  seemed  to  the  Bear  an 
interminable  while  before  he  reached  John 
Bagsbury's  house,  and  in  that  time  his  thoughts 
were  grim  indeed ;  but  just  as  he  was  about  to 
go  up  the  steps  he  paused  suddenly  and  smiled, 
as  though  just  possessed  of  an  idea  that  pleased 
him.  He  glanced  at  his  watch  and  nodded  with 
a  satisfied  air,  then  he  rang  the  bell. 

He  found  Alice  in  the  library,  and  the  per- 
fectly easy  way  in  which  she  greeted  him  con- 
vinced him  that  she  knew  as  little  of  the  lard 
deal  and  its  collateral  incidents  as  though  it 
were  taking  place  in  some  cannibal  island. 

"  You  know  Harriet  is  here,  of  course,"  she 
said.  "  She's  all  right  now,  I  imagine  ;  but  she 
gave  us  a  most  terrible  scare  a  couple  of  hours 
ago.  I  didn't  see  her  when  she  came  in ;  but 
Dick  did,  and  she  saw  that  something  was  the 
matter  with  her,  so  she  took  her  right  up  to 
what  she  calls  her  den.  Dick  says  she  thinks 
that  something  must  have  happened  — something 
to  frighten  her  on  her  way  down  here.  Anyway, 
before  she  had  been  here  ten  minutes  she  had  sort 
of  —  well,  the  doctor  said  it  was  a  hysterical  seiz- 


Harriet  265 

ure.  It  wasn't  like  any  hysterics  I'd  ever  heard 
of,  though.  But  whatever  it  was  she's  all  over 
it  now,  and  the  doctor's  given  her  something  to 
put  her  to  sleep.  I  think  she  will  be  all  right 
by  morning ;  but  you'll  leave  her  here  till  then. 
We'll  take  good  care  of  her.  I  wanted  to  tele- 
phone to  you,  but  John  and  Dick  seemed  to  think 
it  wasn't  necessary." 

John  came  into  the  room  in  time  to  hear  the 
concluding  words  of  Alice's  explanation. 

"  I'm  glad  it's  no  worse,"  Sponley  said.  "  I 
was  a  little  afraid  she  might  break  down.  The 
—  excitement  of  the  last  few  days  has  been  hard 
on  her." 

Then  he  turned  to  John. 

"  I  came  around  on  a  business  matter.  It'll 
take  but  a  moment,"  he  hesitated,  "if  Alice 
will  excuse  us." 

He  led  the  way  to  a  remote  corner  of  the  room. 
"  I've  been  hearing  rumors  all  the  afternoon  about 
your  bank;  I'm  afraid  you're  likely  to  have  some 
trouble  to-morrow.  I  wanted  to  warn  you." 

"  Thank  you,"  John  answered  drily.  "  I've 
heard  something  of  it  myself.  Harriet  told 
Dick  that  you  asked  her  to  tell  me  that  I  was 
going  to  have  a  run  on  my  hands." 


266  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  I  fancy  that  Miss  Haselridge  did  not  under- 
stand precisely,  or  it  may  be  that  in  her  excite- 
ment Harriet  misunderstood  me.  I  told  her 
that  I  meant  to  let  you  know." 

"I  must  be  going  on,"  he  added,  again 
addressing  Alice.  "  I'll  call  up  in  the  morn- 
ing and  find  out  how  Harriet  is." 

Then,  to  John,  "  Well,  good  night.  I  wish 
you  luck." 

John  smiled,  "I  wish  you  the  same  thing," 
he  said. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WEDNESDAY    MORNING 

IT  was,  however,  a  most  unpleasant  smile 
that  accompanied  John's  words.  It  brought 
to  Sponley's  mind  the  story  Hauxton  had 
recalled  to  him  that  afternoon,  of  John  Bags- 
bury's  moment  of  indecision  whether  or  not  to 
kick  Drake  downstairs.  He  was  himself  no 
weakling,  even  when  measured  by  a  merely 
physical  test ;  but  he  had  no  wish  to  try  con- 
clusions of  that  sort  with  the  Banker,  and  he 
took  his  leave  promptly. 

Then  Alice  went  upstairs  to  assure  herself 
that  Harriet  was  being  well  cared  for,  and  a  few 
moments  later  Dick  came  down  to  the  library. 

"  Mrs.  Sponley  is  sleeping  heavily,"  she  said 
in  answer  to  John's  inquiry.  "  There's  nothing 
we  can  do,  I  suppose,  but  leave  her  alone  and 
keep  everything  quiet." 

Then  she  hesitated,  "  Wasn't  —  he  down 
here  ? "  she  asked.  "  I  thought  I  heard  him." 

"  You  did.     He  came  to  warn  me,  too." 
267 


268 

"  To  warn  you  !  " 

"Don't  you  see?  If  there's  going  to  be  a 
run  to-morrow,  there's  absolutely  nothing  I  can 
do  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  to  stop  it.  He 
knows  that ;  and  he  knows  I  know  he  knows  it. 
He  did  it  for  amusement,  I  suppose,  though 
that's  not  like  him.  Perhaps  it  was  to  give  me 
time  to  get  scared  over  night." 

He  paused  and  meditatively  brought  his 
clenched  fist  down  on  the  arm  of  his  chair 
twice,  very  softly. 

"I'm  getting  mad,"  he  said,  rising.  "It's 
time  I  went  to  bed." 

Left  alone  in  the  library,  Dick  tried  to  read; 
but  every  little  while  the  book  would  drop  idly 
to  her  knee,  and  grave-faced,  with  all  the  light 
gone  out  of  her  eyes,  she  would  fall  to  wonder- 
ing what  would  come  of  it  all,  and  just  what 
was  the  value  of  the  stake  that  should  compen- 
sate for  this  tragic  shipwreck  she  had  seen  this 
evening.  No  one  but  Dick,  not  even  Jack  Dor- 
lin,  was  ever  to  know  how  complete  that  wreck 
had  been ;  for  she  could  never  tell  what  had 
happened  after  she  had  shut  the  door  of  her 
den  behind  Harriet  Sponley. 

When  she  turned  away  from  it  to  thinking 


Wednesday  Morning  269 

of  John  Bagsbury,  she  smiled.  Perhaps  because 
any  sort  of  gesture  was  so  unusual  with  him, 
that  gentle  little  movement  of  his  clenched  fist 
had  caused  her  a  shiver  of  rather  pleasant 
excitement.  In  its  very  mildness,  its  total 
inadequacy,  lay  its  significance.  It  seemed  to 
Dick  a  sort  of  ironical  prophecy.  She  did  not 
exactly  hope  to  see  him  in  a  magnificent  rage 
before  this  struggle  was  well  over ;  but  she  could 
not  help  imagining  with  an  exultant  thrill  what 
a  hammer  that  big,  lean  fist  would  be  if  ever  it 
should  be  driven  in  grim  earnest. 

But  if  she  expected  him  to  show  any  sign  of 
excitement  when  he  came  down  to  breakfast 
next  morning,  she  was  disappointed.  John 
drank  his  coffee,  glanced  over  the  paper,  and 
read  aloud,  with  some  appearance  of  satisfac- 
tion, the  weather  prediction  to  the  effect  that 
it  would  be  fair,  followed  by  showers  in  the 
afternoon  ;  and  then,  as  always  in  any  tolerable 
weather,  he  set  out  to  walk  down  to  the  bank. 
Ordinarily  his  pace  did  not  vary  one  hundred 
yards  either  way  from  the  easy  swing  of  four 
miles  an  hour,  but  to-day  something  seemed  to 
be  driving  him.  Faster  and  faster  he  would  go, 
glancing  enviously  at  the  cars  roaring  and  rock- 


270  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

ing  by  on  their  way  down  town.  Then  he 
would  check  himself  with  the  impatient  admoni- 
tion that  there  was  no  hurry.  The  miles  were 
interminable  that  morning,  and  he  was  tired 
when  he  reached  the  end  of  the  last  one. 

But  they  were  behind  him  now,  and  with  a 
long  breath  of  relief  he  turned  the  corner  that 
commanded  a  view  of  the  bank,  and  saw  — 

Try  to  imagine  just  what  the  bank  meant  to 
John  Bagsbury.  He  was  more  of  a  man  than 
his  father  before  him  had  been,  he  had  more 
humanity  in  him ;  but  like  the  withered  old  miser 
who  had  died  over  his  desk,  John  had  put  well- 
nigh  all  he  had  into  this  creature  whose  birth 
had  been  the  signing  of  a  bit  of  parchment  by  a 
state  official.  His  fortune  was  in  it,  his  ambi- 
tion was  in  it,  his  credit  with  the  world  of  trade, 
his  commercial  honor,  if  you  will  allow  me,  was 
in  it. 

His  common  honesty  he  had  put  above  it, 
before  it.  He  would  have  been  the  last  man  on 
earth  to  think  of  repeating — 

"  —  loved  I  not  honor  more," 

in  that  connection,  —  and  I  fancy  I  see  you  smil- 
ing over  the  notion,  —  yet,  allowing  for  the  trans- 


Wednesday  Morning  271 

lation  into  the  unromantic,  sordid  life  of  the 
"  street,"  that  had  been  precisely  the  significance 
of  his  flat  refusal  to  sell  out  Pickering,  and  of 
his  grimly  accepting  Sponley's  challenge.  But 
his  was  not  the  sort  of  mind  to  find  any  conso- 
lation in  the  nobility  of  a  sentiment ;  his  honor 
was  not  self-conscious. 

So  if  you  remember  how  he  had  passed  his 
boyhood  in  that  squat  old  building  half  a  square 
away,  and  can  guess  at  what  had  been  his  feel- 
ing toward  it  during  the  third  of  his  lifetime  he 
had  spent  elsewhere  in  preparation  for  his  return 
to  it,  you  can  understand  why  the  sight  he  saw 
halted  his  heart  as  it  halted  his  feet,  and  then 
sent  it  hammering  on,  almost  to  bursting. 

It  was  nothing  but  a  little  group  of  people, 
fifteen  men,  perhaps,  and  five  or  six  women, 
standing  on  the  steps,  some  of  them  peering 
through  the  glass  doors  in  the  futile  attempt  to 
see  around  the  shades  which  hung  behind.  The 
crowd  grew  half  again  as  large  while  John  was 
walking  the  half  square  from  the  corner.  In 
the  glance  he  cast  about  as  he  walked  through 
he  recognized  Sponley's  coachman.  As  he  was 
going  up  the  stairs,  he  heard  some  one  say  in  an 
undertone,  — 


272  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"That's  Bagsbury ;  I  thought  you  told  me  he'd 
run  off  with  all  the  money." 

"That's  what  a  fellow  told  me,"  returned  an- 
other voice.  "  Is  that  Bagsbury,  sure  enough  ?  " 

John  closed  the  door  behind  him  quickly, 
walked  the  length  of  the  short  passage,  and  once 
in  a  big  dingy  room  looked  about  with  a  heavy 
scowl.  You  could  have  told  from  the  faces,  from 
the  very  attitudes  of  the  clerks  as  they  were  set- 
tling to  their  day's  work,  that  there  was  a  crowd 
in  the  street. 

"  Mr.  Peters,"  John  called.  Peters  was  the 
man  who  did  the  work  for  which  Curtin  received 
his  salary.  "  Mr.  Peters,  I  think  you  had  better 
bring  those  people  in  and  pay  them  their  money 
at  once.  I  wish  you'd  done  it  before  now." 

"  They  can't  be  paid  yet,  Mr.  Bagsbury.  The 
time-lock  on  the  vaults  is  set  for  nine  o'clock. 
It's  only  quarter  of." 

John  looked  at  his  watch.  "  I'd  no  idea  it 
was  so  early,"  he  said.  He  walked  away  half 
a  dozen  paces  and  then  returned.  "  Don't  begin 
then  till  flat  ten  o'clock.  It  seems  we're  in  for 
a  crowd,  any  way,  and  there's  no  use  telling  them 
that  we're  afraid  of  one." 

A  run  on  a  bank  is  like  a  slit  in  a  man's  vein  ; 


Wednesday  Morning  273 

it  does  no  particular  harm  if  it  can  be  stopped 
in  time,  but  the  stopping  of  it  is  imperative,  and 
it  will  not  stop  itself.  No  bank  could  pay  its 
depositors  the  money  they  have  put  in  if  they 
should  all  come  and  ask  for  it  at  once.  The 
bank  which,  at  a  day's  notice,  could  pay  half  of 
them  would  be  esteemed  cautious  —  far  too  cau- 
tious ;  that  is  why  it  is  necessary  to  stop  a  run. 
The  very  human  predilection  for  being  of  the 
sheep  who  get  their  money,  instead  of  finding 
oneself  with  the  goats  who  do  not,  is  the  reason 
why  the  run  will  not  stop  itself. 

And  just  as  a  man  may  bleed  externally  where 
it  is  easy  to  estimate  the  extent  of  the  damage, 
or  internally,  where  it  is  not,  so  a  bank  may 
suffer  a  run  in  two  different  ways.  There  is  the 
kind  of  a  run  which  interests  the  general  public, 
and  which  is  therefore  described  in  the  news- 
papers, with  great  detail  and  circumstance  and 
spirited  little  pen-and-ink  sketches,  three  to  the 
column.  It  occurs  when  those  who  have  small 
amounts  of  money,  generally  savings,  in  a  bank, 
fear  it  is  going  to  fail,  and  come  to  carry  this  treas- 
ure home,  where  they  hide  it  in  stockings  or  old 
teapots  or  feather  beds,  until  reassured  that  the 
bank,  or  some  other,  is  safe  after  all.  That  sort 
T 


274  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

of  run  has  all  the  picturesque  accessories, — the 
file  of  frightened  men  and  women,  the  police  to 
keep  order;  and  if  it  is  occurring  in  a  work  of 
fiction,  it  is  likely  to  be  concluded  by  the  entrance 
of  some  philanthropist  who  flings  down  upon 
the  counter  bags  of  gold,  at  the  reassuring  clink 
of  which  the  depositors  depart  with  cheers. 

The  other  kind  of  a  run,  to  return  to  our  old 
figure,  is  likely  not  to  be  discovered  until  the 
patient  is  dead.  It  has  no  external  manifesta- 
tions whatever.  It  occurs  when  the  larger  de- 
positors write  checks  for  the  amount  of  their 
accounts  and  deposit  them  in  other  banks.  The 
banker  can  know  nothing  about  it  until  he  learns 
of  the  staggering  adverse  balance  he  must  meet 
at  the  clearing  house.  The  drain  may  be  swift 
and  brief,  or  it  may  continue  slowly  for  a  month ; 
in  either  case,  it  is  far  harder  to  break,  far  more 
likely  to  persist,  until  it  lands  the  bank  in  the 
examiner's  hands :  that  is  the  sort  of  run  whose 
progress  you  may  watch  from  across  the  street. 

It  was  evident  to  John  that  his  savings  depos- 
itors had  been  thoroughly  frightened  —  the  wild 
lie  he  had  overheard  as  he  entered  the  bank  was 
probably  but  one  of  a  score  that  were  in  circula- 
tion among  them — and  that  they  would  run  him 


Wednesday  Morning  275 

in  grim  earnest.  And  he  rightly  suspected  that 
Melville  Sponley  had  thoughtfully  provided  a 
rumor  or  two  which  might  stampede  his  com- 
mercial depositors  also. 

When  Dawson  came  around  at  half -past  ten,  he 
found  a  file  of  waiting  depositors  that  extended 
clear  to  the  corner.  He  walked  into  John's  pri- 
vate office  and  sat  down  near  the  window. 

"This  is  hell,  isn't  it?"  he  remarked  cheer- 
fully. 

John  nodded,  and  Dawson  looked  out  at  the 
crowd  in  the  street. 

"  It  doesn't  take  but  a  minute  to  get  a  pack 
of  fools  together  at  any  given  point,"  the  older 
man  went  on. 

"  All  the  fools  aren't  standing  in  line  out  there, 
though,"  said  John. 

Dawson  turned  from  the  window  and  looked 
over  the  Banker  from  head  to  foot,  but  made  no 
comment  on  the  remark. 

"  I've  been  talking  with  them  out  there,"  he 
said,  "trying  to  find  out  what  scared  them. 
There  are  the  wildest  lot  of  yarns  you  ever 
heard  going  up  and  down  that  line.  I  don't  sup- 
pose the  man  who  started  it  told  anything  very 
big,  either.  Those  things  grow  like  thistles." 


276  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Still  the  Banker  made  no  reply,  but  stared 
moodily  at  the  blotter  on  his  desk. 

"  You're  not  demanding  thirty  days'  notice,  are 
you  ? "  Dawson  asked.  "  You  seem  to  be  pay- 
ing everybody  who  asks  for  his  money." 

"  Yes,  we  might  as  well  suspend  entirely  as  to 
demand  notice  at  a  time  like  this.  The  moral 
effect  would  be  as  bad.  They'd  just  keep  com- 
ing to  get  their  money  until  they  fairly  ran  us 
out  of  business.  We  can  keep  this  up  until  the 
cows  come  home,"  and  he  nodded  toward  the 
window. 

"  This  isn't  the  worst  you'll  get,  though,"  said 
Dawson.  "  Of  course  nobody  but  a  fool'd  be 
scared  by  those  stories ;  but  there  is  a  story  that 
I've  heard  from  three  or  four  sources,  that  your 
loans  to  Pickering  are  entirely  unsecured,  and 
that  if  he  goes  down,  he's  sure  to  pull  you 
with  him.  You  wouldn't  think  men'd  believe 
a  damned  lie  like  that ;  but  they  do,  and  you're 
likely  to  have  an  awful  balance  against  you  at 
the  clearing  house." 

"  I've  been  selling  exchange  as  fast  as  I  could 
without  breaking  the  market  for  it.  That'll 
help  square  me  there."  John  rose  and  walked 
nervously  to  the  window.  "I'd  like  to  take  the 


Wednesday  Morning  277 

whole  bunch  of  lies  those  people  have  heard 
and  stuff  them  down  the  throat  they  first  came 
out  of  — by  God,  I  should !  " 

"  So  would  I,"  said  Dawson,  quietly.  "  But 
look  here,  John,"  it  was  the  first  time  in  years 
that  Dawson  had  called  him  by  his  Christian 
name,  "  you  can't  afford  to  get  mad  yet.  Don't 
let  your  bearings  get  hot  until  the  run's  over. 
Don't  think  about  it." 

"  I  remember  Sponley  said  once,"  John's  mind 
had  run  back,  and  for  an  instant  he  thought  of 
his  old  friend  rather  than  his  new  enemy,  "  he 
said  that  to  a  man  who  lives  as  we  do,  an 
emotion  was  a  more  expensive  luxury  than  a 
steam  yacht.  But  by  —  " 

He  checked  himself  abruptly.  "  Thank  you. 
Do  you  suppose  the  Atlantic  can  let  me  have 
some  small  currency  about  closing  time  ?  These 
little  accounts  are  taking  all  I've  got." 

The  old  man  nodded.  "  You're  all  right. 
Only  keep  cool  and  —  well  oiled.  You  can't 
waste  anything  on  friction  to-day.  Good-by." 

Toward  noon  the  crowd  grew  larger  and  its 
temper  worse,  as  the  more  distant  part  of  it 
began  to  fear  it  would  not  reach  the  window 
by  closing  time.  That  sort  of  gathering,  where 


278  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

all  have  come  with  the  same  single  purpose, 
acquires  a  distinct  individuality.  This  giant  is 
far  lower  in  intelligence  than  the  average  of  its 
component  parts;  more  subject  to  swift,  unrea- 
soning enthusiasm  or  anger,  easily  led  or  directed 
by  anything  that  glitters.  It  is  a  person,  not  a 
number  of  persons.  You  must  reckon  with  it 
in  the  singular.  In  his  office  John  was  per- 
fectly conscious  of  this  new  sullenness  that  had 
come  over  the  crowd,  and  he  soon  discovered 
the  cause  of  it  in  a  newspaper  the  small  boys 
were  hawking  about  the  street.  It  was  a  sensa- 
tional "  Extra,"  with  the  words  "  Bulls  break  for 
Cover  "  in  letters  three  inches  high  across  the 
front  page,  followed  by  the  information  that 
Pickering's  gang  was  badly  squeezed  by  a  drop 
of  four  dollars  a  tierce  in  the  price  of  lard,  and 
that  the  cause  was  the  serious  run  that  was  in 
progress  at  Bagsbury's  bank. 

At  quarter  after  twelve  there  came  to  John's 
ears  a  sound  he  had  never  heard  before  —  the 
noise  that  this  dangerous  animal,  called  a  crowd, 
makes  when  it  is  angry.  It  began  with  a  mut- 
ter so  far  down  the  scale  that  it  seemed  to  come 
from  anywhere,  or  nowhere,  swelled  slowly  at 
first,  and  then  with  a  sudden  stringendo  to  a 


Wednesday  Morning  279 

yell,  and  snapped  off  so  short  he  could  feel  the 
air  quivering  in  the  silence  behind  it. 

It  fairly  jerked  the  Banker  out  of  his  chair, 
and  drew  the  half-dozen  policemen  who  were 
standing  about  the  big  room,  and  who  knew 
what  it  meant,  to  the  door  on  the  run.  John 
reached  the  window  just  in  time  to  see  Picker- 
ing walking  slowly  up  the  steps. 

When  he  entered  the  private  office  he  was 
slightly  pale,  but  laughing,  and  he  moved  with 
an  air  of  bravado  toward  the  window. 

"  Stand  back  from  there,"  said  John.  "  You 
shouldn't  have  come  here  to-day,  Mr.  Picker- 
ing." 

"  I  didn't  come  on  a  pleasure  trip.  I  need 
some  money." 

The  excitement  that  wild  yell  had  wrought  in 
him  was  oozing  out  now.  His  face  twitched  and 
he  glanced  uneasily  toward  the  window.  "  Damn 
them,"  he  said.  Then  he  repeated,  "I  want 
some  money." 

"  You  can't  have  it,"  said  the  Banker. 

They  heard  the  storm  rising  again,  and  both 
men  waited  for  it  to  break.  It  wiped  the  color 
out  of  Pickering's  face,  and  he  was  no  coward, 
either. 


280  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Isn't  it  a  little  late  to  let  go  ? "  he  asked. 
"  If  it's  one  of  us  now,  it's  both." 

"  That  may  be,"  said  the  Banker ;  "  but  you 
can't  have  it.  I  can't  give  you  my  depositors' 
money  when  they're  lined  up  here  to  get  it.  It 
may  be  that  when  I  find  out  where  I  stand  with 
the  clearing  house,  I'll  be  able  to  help  you.  But 
I  can  do  nothing  now.  And  it  seems  to  me 
that  your  staying  here  any  longer,"  there  it 
came  again,  "isn't  going  to  improve  the  tem- 
per of  that  crowd,"  he  went  on  evenly.  "  Do 
you  want  a  couple  of  policemen  to  go  with  you  ? 
Those  fellows  may  be  rough." 

"  No,  they're  harmless.  They're  chained. 
They  wouldn't  lose  their  place  in  line  even  for 
me." 

John  Bagsbury  likes  to  tell  the  story  of  that 
day,  and  of  the  next ;  but  he  says  nothing  of  the 
half  hour  that  followed  Pickering's  visit :  he  has 
almost  forgotten  it  himself. 

Only  by  his  utmost  effort  had  he  controlled 
himself  while  Pickering  was  in  his  office,  for  the 
cries  from  the  street  maddened  him.  He  knew 
that  Dawson  was  right,  that  to  lose  control  of 
himself  was  to  lose  the  fight,  and  he  struggled 
desperately  to  keep  himself  in  hand.  But  when 


Wednesday  Morning  281 

the  door  was  shut,  and  he  was  alone,  and  when, 
a  moment  later,  he  heard  the  derisive  cheer 
which  greeted  the  reappearance  of  Pickering 
on  the  front  steps,  his  anger  mastered  him. 
He  tried  to  make  himself  think.  He  must 
discover  some  way  of  reassuring  those  people 
in  the  street,  of  stopping  this  run  before  it 
drained  him  dry,  of  meeting  the  balance 
there  would  be  against  him  at  the  clearing 
house ;  but  his  rage  befogged  his  mind,  his 
faculties  were  numb,  and  all  he  knew  was  the 
longing  to  have  Melville  Sponley  under  his 
hands  for  —  for  just  one  minute. 

He  would  not  admit  it  now,  if  you  were  to 
ask  him ;  yet  it  is  true  that  when  he  turned  his 
back  on  the  old  desk  and  bowed  his  head,  he 
told  himself  that  there  was  no  more  use  fight- 
ing ;  he  confessed  that  he  was  beaten. 

Then  there  came  a  knock  at  the  door  and 
some  one  said, — 

"  Mr.  Cartwright  and  Mr.  Meredith  would 
like  to  see  you,  Mr.  Bagsbury." 

When  the  two  old  trustees  entered  the  office, 
they  saw  the  only  John  Bagsbury  that  they  or 
anybody  else  had  ever  seen  in  his  office,  —  the 
courteous,  patient,  quick-witted,  even-minded 


282  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

John  Bagsbury  whom  everybody  but  these 
same  trustees  knew  to  be  the  best  banker  in 
the  city. 

"  This  is  outrageous,"  said  Mr.  Cartwright, 
and  his  voice  shook.  Poor  Mr.  Meredith's 
would  not  come  at  all,  though  his  lips  moved  in 
tremulous  imitation  of  his  principal's. 

"  Mr.  Dawson  said  something  to  the  same  ef- 
fect when  he  was  here  a  couple  of  hours  ago," 
said  John.  "  I  agree  with  both  of  you." 

"  I  suppose  you  wish  to  see  me  on  a  matter 
of  personal  business,  gentlemen,"  he  added,  and 
closed  the  door. 

Half  an  hour  later  he  opened  it  and  spoke 
to  the  telephone  boy.  He  did  not  speak  very 
loudly,  but  his  voice  carried  to  the  farthest  cor- 
ner of  the  big  noisy  room. 

"Will  you  call  up  Mr.  Moffat,  I  wish  to  speak 
with  him." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

HOW  THEY  BROKE  THE  RUN 

THERE  was  nothing  really  surprising  about 
it,  though  John  had  not  expected  that  the  two 
dissenting  trustees  would  reach  that  turning  in 
the  lane  so  soon.  On  Sunday  morning,  when 
he  had  said  to  Mr.  Cartwright  that  of  course  he 
and  Mr.  Meredith  would  not  be  able  to  escape 
all  the  scandal  that  would  certainly  attend  the 
failure  of  the  bank,  it  was  no  new  fear  that  he 
put  in  the  old  man's  mind.  Mr.  Cartwright 
and  his  echo  had  discussed  that  possibility  in 
awed  whispers  a  dozen  times  since  John  had 
been  made  president.  When  he  went  to  Cart- 
wright's  house  Monday  evening,  John  referred 
frankly,  though  with  a  good  deal  of  tact,  to  that 
very  point ;  but  he  said  nothing  of  the  obvious 
way  they  had  out  of  their  difficulty.  He  left 
them  to  think  of  that  for  themselves.  It  was 
inevitable  that  they  should  think  of  it,  and  that 
they  should  decide  that  such  a  course,  should 
283 


284  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

it  become  necessary,  would  involve  no  betrayal 
of  old  John  Bagsbury's  trust.  Thanks  to  the 
other  stockholders  in  the  bank,  and  to  the 
unspeakable  Moffat,  they  had  no  real  control 
of  the  larger  part  of  the  estate;  and  if  their 
nominal  authority  were  going  to  bring  disgrace 
upon  their  eminently  respectable  old  heads,  why 
should  they  not  discard  it  ? 

When  they  heard  that  there  was  a  run  in  prog- 
ress at  the  bank,  they  set  out  thither  merely 
because  they  were  frightened.  They  had  no 
idea  of  doing  anything  so  radical  as  turning  the 
estate  over,  then  and  there,  into  the  mad  hands 
of  John  Bagsbury.  With  all  their  perturbation, 
they  would  probably  not  have  been  able  to 
make  up  their  minds  to  such  an  act  until  the 
danger  was  over,  had  it  not  been  for  the  crowd 
in  the  street.  That  crowd  had  frightened  Picker- 
ing, had  benumbed  John,  and  it  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  at  sight  of  it  Mr.  Cartwright  and  Mr. 
Meredith  should  feel  the  panic  strike  in  to  their 
very  marrow.  They  were  very  old,  they  wanted 
no  occupation  more  exciting  than  playing  golf 
and  telling  old  stories  and  sipping  irreproach- 
able sherry.  But  here  was  a  mob,  and  here 
were  policemen,  here  was  riot  and  disaster, 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  285 

and,  worse  yet,  a  certain  scandal.  They  fairly 
gasped  with  relief  when  they  were  safe  in  the 
little  room,  and  the  door  was  shut.  Even  John 
Bagsbury's  office  seemed  a  haven  after  that 
tumultuous  street. 

So  it  was  natural  enough  that  when  John 
Bagsbury  said,  divining  the  rapidly  forming  pur- 
pose which  underlay  their  querulous  complaints 
and  remonstrances,  "Well,  gentlemen,  shall  I 
telephone  for  Mr.  Moffat?"  that  they  should 
have  assented,  though  their  red  faces  grew  redder 
as  they  did  it,  and  that  after  the  third  trustee 
arrived,  badly  out  of  breath  with  hurry  and  with 
chuckling  over  the  situation,  the  first  steps  to 
make  John  master  of  his  own  property  should 
have  been  taken  as  promptly  as  possible. 

It  remained  for  Jack  Dorlin,  when  months 
afterward  he  turned  a  reminiscent  and  contem- 
plative eye  upon  the  episode,  to  discover  the 
curious  perversity  of  it  all.  John's  first  oppor- 
tunity to  get  control  of  the  bank  had  arisen  in 
the  excessive  precaution  his  father  had  taken  to 
prevent  it,  and  now  the  same  timorous  conserva- 
tism of  his  trustees,  on  which  the  old  man  had 
counted  so  much,  was  turned  to  panic,  and  the 
move  deliberately  calculated  by  Sponley  to  ruin 


286  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

John  served  only  to  make  the  temporary  control 
permanent 

John  heard  from  the  clearing  house  and  from 
Pickering  almost  simultaneously.  The  news 
from  the  former  was  no  worse  than  the  Banker 
had  expected,  and  from  the  latter  much  better; 
for  the  closing  bell  had  rung,  and  Pickering  was 
safe  till  to-morrow  morning.  But  the  tide  of 
battle  was  turned  already.  With  the  arrival  of 
Cartwright  and  Meredith  at  the  bank,  and  John's 
quick  guess  at  their  errand,  his  confidence  had 
come  back.  The  morning  with  its  confession  of 
defeat  was  forgotten.  He  was  no  longer  angry ; 
his  mind  was  occupied  by  a  confident  determi- 
nation to  win. 

He  left  the  telephone  after  receiving  Picker- 
ing's message  and  approached  a  little  group  of 
his  officers,  who  were  discussing  the  situation, 
and  who  apparently  entertained  serious  mis- 
giving as  to  what  the  outcome  would  be. 

"  I  don't  think  you  need  to  feel  alarmed  about 
it,"  he  said.  "We're  coming  out  all  right. 
We'll  have  that  run  broken  now  in  short  notice." 

"We  don't  seem  to  be  making  much  head- 
way," said  Jackson.  "That  line's  longer  than 
ever  and  more  scared.  The  people  down  there 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  287 

by  the  corner  think  they  aren't  going  to  get  this 
money." 

"  Thank  God  it's  getting  somewhere  near  three 
o'clock,"  said  Peters. 

"  We  ought  to  be  able  to  last  out  to-day,  it 
seems  to  me,"  hazarded  Curtin. 

"Yes,  it's  to-morrow  that  scares  me,"  Peters 
answered. 

"We  shan't  close  at  three,"  said  John  Bags- 
bury.  "  We're  going  to  keep  open  till  every 
depositor  who's  waiting  out  there  in  line  gets 
his  money.  We'll  keep  it  up  as  long  as  they  do, 
if  that's  till  midnight." 

"  I  don't  see  how  we  can  do  that,  Mr.  Bags- 
bury,"  Jackson  remonstrated.  "  I  should  think 
we  ought  to  stop  for  breath  when  we  have  the 
chance." 

"  I  don't  want  another  day  like  this.  We'll 
be  able  to  pay  every  man  who  wants  his  money 
before  we  close  to-night,  and  we're  going  to  do 
it.  I  think  you'd  better  put  out  a  notice  to  that 
effect,  Mr.  Peters.  I'm  going  out  to  lunch.  I'll 
be  at  that  little  place  on  the  corner,  so  that  if 
you  want  me,  you  can  get  at  me.  Please  put 
that  notice  in  a  conspicuous  place,  Mr.  Peters." 

John  was  hardly  out  of  the  bank  before  Curtin 


288  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

had  called  up  Sponley  and  begun  an  account  of 
the  way  matters  had  been  going  since  noon ;  but 
the  Bear  cut  short  his  narrative. 

"  Don't  say  anything  more  over  the  'phone ; 
it  isn't  safe.  Anyway,  I  want  to  talk  with  you. 
You  say  Bagsbury's  gone  out  to  lunch  ?  Do 
you  know  where  ?  Well,  you  come  right  off, 
as  quick  as  you  can,  to  the  Eagle  Cafe,  in  the 
Arcadia  building.  Yes,  I'll  be  there  in  one  of 
the  private  rooms." 

Sponley  heard  or  guessed  enough  from  what 
Curtin  told  him  to  make  him  think  that  the  bank 
was  in  no  such  desperate  condition  as  he  had 
hoped.  He  had  been  winning  all  day ;  he  was 
almost  sure  that  he  would  be  able  to  finish  Pick- 
ering within  the  first  hour  next  morning,  but  he 
was  unwilling  to  take  any  chances.  If  John 
should  so  thoroughly  break  up  the  run  this  after- 
noon that  it  would  not  be  resumed  to-morrow 
morning,  the  Bull  might  recover  his  lost  ground 
and  compel  him  to  do  the  work  all  over  again. 
It  would  be  risky,  riskier  than  it  had  been  before, 
to  get  people  to  talking  once  more  and  create 
another  run  on  the  bank.  And  so  he  decided 
to  play  his  last  card. 

It  was  an  old  notion  of  his  which  Curtin  had 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  289 

recalled  to  his  mind  just  a  week  ago,  when  he 
said  he  had  not  been  hired  to  crack  safes.  It 
seemed  to  him  then  too  theatrical  to  be  worth 
considering  seriously ;  but  as  the  days  went  by, 
and  the  fight  grew  hotter,  and  one  plan  after  an- 
other failed  to  dislodge  John  Bagsbury  from  his 
position  supporting  Pickering,  the  idea  came  back 
to  him  and  he  asked  himself,  Why  not,  as  a  last 
resort.  Well,  it  was  now  or  not  at  all.  Curtin, 
he  reflected,  would  probably  not  relish  the  job, 
but  that  was  not  an  important  consideration. 

The  assistant  cashier,  however,  surprised  his 
employer  by  entering  into  the  scheme  with  a 
good  deal  of  gusto.  Had  Sponley  known  his 
man  less  thoroughly,  he  would  have  suspected 
the  genuineness  of  this  enthusiasm,  and  would 
have  conceived  the  idea  that  Curtin  meant  to 
play  him  false.  But  the  Bear  had  no  misgiv- 
ings. Curtin  might  plan  a  dozen  treacheries  in 
an  hour,  but  when  the  moment  of  action  came, 
he  would  obey  orders. 

Sponley  cut  short  his  guessing  as  to  just 
what  the  effect  of  the  trick  would  be. 

"You'd  better  get  right  back  to  the  bank, 
and  don't  telephone  to  me,  whatever  happens. 
Don't  try  to  communicate  with  me  in  any  way 
u 


290  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

either  to-night  or  to-morrow  morning.  It  isn't 
safe.  If  I  want  to  find  out  anything,  I'll  con- 
trive to  get  word  to  you." 

Curtin  nodded  and  left  the  room.  Just  out- 
side the  door  he  hesitated  a  moment,  then 
walked  nervously  over  to  the  bar  and  ordered 
a  drink  of  whiskey.  He  watched  the  man  pour- 
ing it  into  the  glass,  and  did  not  see  who  had 
come  up  beside  him  until  Sponley  laid  his  hand 
upon  his  arm. 

"  You  don't  want  that,  do  you  ?  Don't  you 
think  you've  had  enough  this  afternoon  ? " 

Curtin  laughed  weakly.  "  It  won't  hurt  me. 
I  want  something  to  brace  me  up." 

"That  won't  brace  you  up.  You're  excited 
enough  already." 

"  There's  no  harm  in  this  one.  I  won't  take 
any  more." 

The  barkeeper  had  pushed  the  glass  toward 
him,  and  he  raised  it  toward  his  lips. 

"  Put  that  down !  " 

The  glass  halted. 

"  This  seems  to  be  my  business  rather  than 
yours." 

The  glass  moved  upward  again,  but  now  it 
was  trembling. 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  291 

The  next  instant  it  was  shivered  on  the  tile 
floor,  and  both  Curtin's  wrists  were  fettered  in 
Sponley's  hands. 

"  Damn  you,"  Curtin  said. 

"  I  told  you  not  to,"  said  Sponley,  quietly. 
"Now  go  back  to  the  bank."  He  let  go  of 
Curtin's  wrists. 

"  Do  you  —  do  you  think  I'll  take  your  orders 
after  an  insult  like  that  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  will.  You've  found  it  paid 
pretty  well  before  now.  But  that  was  not  an 
insult ;  it  was  business.  You'll  get  us  both  into 
trouble  if  you're  drunk  this  afternoon.  You'll 
see  that  that's  so  when  you're  cooled  down." 

Sponley  paid  for  the  glass,  and  without 
another  word  to  Curtin,  or  even  a  look  at  him, 
left  the  cafe  and  entered  his  carriage,  which  was 
waiting  for  him  at  the  corner.  It  was  three  or 
four  minutes  later  when  Curtin  came  out,  but 
in  that  time  he  had  not  been  able  to  force  him- 
self to  order  another  glass  of  whiskey. 

At  three  o'clock  John  Bagsbury  sent  word 
to  Jack  Dorlin  to  come  into  the  private  office. 
Jack  found  him  standing  back  a  couple  of 
paces  from  his  window,  looking  down  with 
what  appeared  to  be  a  merely  impersonal  or 


292  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

speculative  interest  upon  the  undiminished 
crowd  in  the  street. 

"Mr.  Dorlin,"  he  said,  "you've  shown  a  dis- 
position to  help  me  out  of  difficulties  before," 
Jack  looked  at  him  closely,  but  there  was  not 
even  the  faint  trace  of  a  smile,  "and  I  want 
you  to  come  to  my  assistance  again.  I  want  you 
to  help  me  scatter  that  crowd  in  the  street." 

"  By  violence,  Mr.  Bagsbury,  or  by  guile  ?  " 

Still  John's  face  was  serious.  "By  guile," 
he  answered.  "  It  would  take  a  squadron  of 
cavalry  to  do  it  the  other  way.  I'm  going  to 
try  a  bluff,  or  rather  I've  thought  of  a  bluff 
that  I  want  you  to  try.  I  don't  like  that  sort 
of  thing,  but  nothing  else  will  have  any  weight 
with  those  people  out  there.  If  we  could  give 
them  a  mathematical  demonstration  that  their 
money  was  safe,  they'd  stay  around  to  get  it 
just  the  same.  They're  like  small  children; 
they  want  an  object  lesson. 

"  When  I  met  Dawson  at  lunch  I  arranged  to 
get  one  hundred  thousand  from  the  Atlantic  in 
currency.  I  want  you  to  go  and  get  it  now  and 
—  here's  where  the  bluff  comes  in  —  bring  it 
back  as  impressively  as  possible.  That's  the 
whole  trick ;  we  don't  need  the  money,  but  we 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  293 

do  need  the  effect.  I  haven't  time  to  arrange 
the  details,  so  I  leave  that  in  your  hands. 
You  have  a  pretty  healthy  imagination,  and  you 
ought  to  be  able  to  get  up  something  effective. 
You  may  find  Dawson  over  at  the  Atlantic.  If 
you  do,  he'll  have  some  ideas  on  the  subject; 
but  the  whole  business  is  in  your  hands.  You 
get  the  idea,  don't  you  ? " 

"  I  think  so.  Is  there  any  danger  of  over- 
doing it — of  being  too  spectacular?" 

"  No,"  said  John ;  "  you  can  pile  it  on  as  thick 
as  you  like." 

"All  right.  I'll  work  it  up  as  well  as  I  can. 
It's  getting  pretty  black  overhead  ;  if  I  and  the 
rain  strike  here  at  the  same  time,  we  ought  to 
do  the  trick." 

The  rain  set  in  before  Jack  was  a  block  away 
from  the  bank.  According  to  the  morning 
paper  it  was  only  a  shower ;  but  John  Bagsbury 
noted  with  pleasure  that  it  had  a  downright, 
businesslike  way  about  it,  and  a  promise  of 
plenty  of  endurance.  By  itself  it  had  no  evi- 
dent effect,  but  it  was  doubtless  preparing  the 
mind  of  the  crowd  in  the  street  for  the  more 
enthusiastic  reception  of  the  object  lesson  that 
was  soon  to  arrive. 


294  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

John  stepped  to  the  door  of  his  office  and 
called  to  Mr.  Peters. 

"  I  wish  you'd  have  all  the  silver  there  is  in 
the  vaults  brought  out  and  piled  in  the  tellers' 
cages,"  he  said  thoughtfully,  "  and  have  the  men 
bring  it  out  one  bag  at  a  time  and  carry  it  as 
though  it  was  heavy.  It  won't  be  necessary  to 
open  any  of  the  bags,  but  I  think  it  will  look 
well." 

While  John  stood  at  the  door  watching  to  see 
that  his  order  was  being  carried  out  according 
to  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  letter,  his  eyes  fell 
repeatedly  on  Curtin.  The  assistant  cashier 
was  moving  uneasily  about,  doing  nothing  in 
particular,  and  seeming  to  find  that  difficult  to 
do.  He  would  halt  before  a  window  and  gaze 
sullenly  out  at  the  rain,  and  then  hurry  impa- 
tiently back  to  his  desk.  Once  he  walked  the 
whole  length  of  the  narrow  passage  between 
the  cages  and  the  vaults,  with  no  other  apparent 
purpose  than  being  in  the  way ;  for  at  the  end 
of  it  he  turned  around  and  walked  back.  As 
he  passed  the  door  of  the  private  office,  John 
spoke  to  him. 

"Mr.  Curtin,  there's  no  need  of  your  staying 
any  longer." 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  295 

He  turned  a  shade  paler.  "What  do  you 
mean? "  he  asked. 

"  Nothing  to  get  excited  about,"  said  John, 
looking  at  him  curiously.  "  I  thought  from 
your  manner  that  you  were  uneasy  and  anxious 
to  get  away,  and  I  said  that  nothing  need  detain 
you.  Mr.  Peters  will  see  to  locking  up  the 
vaults." 

"  I'd  rather  stay,"  said  Curtin,  as  steadily  as 
he  could.  "  I  didn't  understand  you  at  first. 
I  am  uneasy  —  I  want  to  see  the  thing  through 
—  to  see  something  stop  this  run  — "  John 
nodded  brusquely  and  turned  away.  He  had 
no  particular  reason  for  thinking  that  Curtin 
was  lying,  but  the  air  of  essential  untruthful- 
ness  of  the  man  made  it  difficult  to  believe  him, 
even  in  a  matter  of  no  moment.  Everything 
he  did  and  the  way  he  did  it  irritated  John 
Bagsbury. 

There  was  nothing  else  to  do,  so  the  Banker 
sat  down  at  his  desk  to  await  the  arrival  of  the 
object  lesson.  Everything  was  ready.  The 
rain  was  holding  well,  and  the  stacks  of  angular 
canvas  bags  behind  the  gratings  seemed  to  be 
making  an  excellent  impression  on  the  file  of 
depositors  who  were  within  the  doors.  But 


296  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

still  the  line  was  unbroken.  All  depended  now 
on  Jack  Dorlin.  It  took  him  long  enough,  the 
Banker  thought  impatiently. 

But  there !  The  object  lesson  was  coming  at 
last.  John  could  see  nothing  as  yet,  but  the 
noise  from  the  street  told  him.  It  was  a  very 
different  noise  from  any  other  that  had  come 
through  the  window.  The  crowd,  that  big 
animal  which  had  yelled  a  few  hours  back,  was 
purring.  The  object  lesson  was  slow  to  appear, 
but  when  it  did  — 

"  Come  in  here,  Jackson,"  John  called.  "  Come 
here  and  look." 

"  By  the  jumping  Julius  Caesar !  "  the  cashier 
exclaimed,  when  he  caught  sight  of  it.  "  He's 
organized  a  street  parade !  I  wonder  why  he 
didn't  bring  a  brass  band." 

There  was  Jack  Dorlin  in  front,  marching 
with  a  gravity  befitting  the  situation,  bearing 
under  his  arm  a  bulky  package  secured  by  yards 
of  heavy  cord  and  splendid  with  red  sealing-wax. 
And  in  single  file  behind  him  were  nine  other 
young  men  of  assorted  sizes,  every  one  of  them 
carrying  a  similar  burden.  As  convoy,  two  to 
the  man,  guarding  both  flanks  of  the  file  with 
most  impressive  zeal,  were  twenty  blue-coated 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  297 

policemen.  There  was  some  sort  of  lettering 
on  each  of  the  ten  packages  which  the  crowd 
seemed  to  be  reading  with  great  satisfaction. 

Straight  through  the  crowd  and  up  the  steps 
came  the  procession,  never  once  breaking  its 
imposing  formation  till  safe  behind  the  rail  in 
the  bank.  Then  John  read  what  was  printed 
on  the  packages,  "  Atlantic  National  Bank, 
$50,000."  Taking  Jack  by  the  arm,  he  marched 
him  into  his  private  office. 

"  You  did  that  brown,  Dorlin." 

"  It  was  partly  Mr.  Dawson's  idea,"  said  Jack. 
"  Those  packages  were  already  sealed  up.  He 
painted  the  extra  ciphers  on  them  himself.  I 
was  afraid  it  would  be  a  little  stiff,  besides  being 
not  quite  accurate,  but  he  said  it  would  go  down 
all  right." 

"Then  you've  only  got  fifty  thousand  there 
in  all?" 

"  Yes,  you  see  this  is  only  the  direct  attack. 
The  rest  is  with  the  flank  movement,"  said  Jack ; 
"  it  ought  to  be  here  by  now.  Oh,  there  it  is !  " 

Jack  reached  the  window  just  as  a  big,  red, 
iron-grated  American  Express  Company  wagon 
pulled  up  before  the  bank  and  backed  round  to 
the  sidewalk.  Then  he  saw  a  wave  of  excite- 


298  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

ment  go  over  the  crowd  when  two  men  armed 
with  Winchesters  sprang  down  and  ran  to  the 
rear  end  of  the  wagon. 

"  Hurrah  for  the  other  million  !  "  came  a  voice 
from  somewhere,  and  a  crashing  cheer  from  the 
crowd  was  the  answer. 

It  had  been  raining  before  in  a  plodding, 
commonplace  fashion,  but  now  the  water  began 
coming  down  in  continuous  streams  instead  of 
detached  drops,  and  the  crowd  huddled  a  little 
closer  to  watch  the  men  who  splashed  back  and 
forth  across  the  sidewalk  carrying  lumpy  canvas 
bags  into  the  bank. 

"  Ten  thousand  of  it  is  in  gold,"  said  Jack, 
"the  rest  is  just  about  a  ton  of  silver  dollars. 
I  thought  you  might  want  to  open  some  of  the 
bags." 

They  did  open  some  of  the  bags,  and  poured 
streams  of  shining  double-eagles  over  the  count- 
ers. 

"You'd  better  pay  in  gold  for  a  while,"  John 
ordered  the  paying  tellers.  Then  he  went 
around  and  spoke  to  the  men  behind  the  receiv- 
ers' windows. 

The  next  few  people  to  reach  the  windows 
had  very  small  amounts  of  money  in  the  bank, 


How  they  Broke  the  Run  299 

and  they  departed,  clinking  their  two  or  three 
pieces  of  yellow  metal  with  great  satisfaction. 
But  presently  there  came  a  man  whose  account 
was  more  than  a  thousand  dollars.  Fifty  double- 
eagles  are  not  only  heavy,  their  bulk,  compared 
with  the  capacity  of  the  average  pocket,  is  con- 
siderable. The  man  gathered  them  up  in  a 
helpless  sort  of  a  way  and  tried  with  no  great 
success  to  stow  them  inconspicuously  about  his 
person,  while  the  crowd  of  depositors  waiting 
their  turn  made  derisive  comments  upon  his 
plight.  Finally,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  has 
just  made  a  momentous  decision,  he  walked  to 
the  receiving  teller's  window. 

"I  believe  I'll  put  it  back  after  all,"  he  said, 
"  I  guess  the  bank's  safe  enough." 

"You  can't  put  it  back  to-night,"  the  teller 
answered  politely.  "  It's  too  late,  after  three 
o'clock.  The  bank's  closed."  He  had  to  say 
it  twice  before  the  man  understood,  and  to  save 
future  explanations,  perhaps,  he  said  it  loudly 
enough  for  all  around  to  hear. 

"  But  what  am  I  going  to  do  ? "  the  man 
asked. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  teller.  "  Get  your- 
self arrested,"  called  somebody  in  the  crowd. 


For  by  that  time  it  was  a  crowd,  the  line  had 
melted  away.  They  had  not  waited  all  those 
hours  for  their  money  with  any  intention  of 
putting  it  back  in  the  bank  that  night ;  but 
to  discover  that  they  could  not  put  it  back,  that 
the  bank  could  not  be  induced  to  take  it  back 
that  night,  gave  the  matter  a  different  color.  A 
few  of  the  more  independent  ones  stepped  boldly 
out  of  the  line;  then,  after  an  irresolute  half 
minute  of  staring  at  the  great  piles  of  coin  and 
paper,  the  others  followed,  and  men  and  women 
streamed  sheepishly  out  through  the  wide  open 
doors  into  the  already  empty  street. 

"I'm  going,  too,"  said  John  Bagsbury.  "The 
show's  over.  I've  had  enough." 

Curtin  looked  as  though  he  had  had  enough, 
too ;  but  he  waited  till  all  the  money  was  safely 
put  away,  and  he  could  lock  up  the  vaults. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE    FOURTH    DAY 

THE  time  lock  is  not  an  old  device,  but  it  is 
already  a  necessity.  Just  as  the  invention  of 
new  and  impenetrable  armor  for  battle-ships 
has  only  produced  new  cannon  or  new  projec- 
tiles which  make  necessary  a  still  harder  pro- 
tective shell  about  the  ship,  so  has  the  increasing 
ingenuity  with  which  banks  guard  their  treasure 
been  met  by  a  corresponding  advance  in  audac- 
ity and  skill  by  those  whose  trade  it  is  to  rob 
the  banks.  An  old-fashioned  safe  would  be  to  a 
bank  as  useless  a  toy  as  one  of  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus's  wooden  cannon  in  a  modern  fort ;  and  a 
safe  cracker  of  the  past  generation  would  be  as 
helpless  as  John  Bagsbury's  daughter  Martha  in 
the  presence  of  a  great  Harvey ized-steel  sphere 
with  its  electric  apron  burglar  alarm,  its  half- 
dozen  separate  combinations,  and  its  time-lock 
ticking  away  inside.  The  time-lock  differs  from 
other  devices  of  the  sort  in  this,  that  it  is  no 
301 


302  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

respecter  of  persons ;  it  makes  no  discrimination 
between  Trojan  and  Tyrian,  friend  and  enemy. 
It  resides  in  a  glass-covered  box  on  the  inner 
face  of  the  door.  You  unlock  the  cover,  turn 
the  knob  until  the  hand  upon  a  dial  points  to 
a  certain  number,  and  push  the  door  to,  and  it 
will  not  open  again  until  that  number  of  hours 
has  elapsed. 

It  had  occurred  to  Melville  Sponley  that  vaults 
which  could  not  be  unlocked  would  be  as  disas- 
trous to  a  bank  as  vaults  which  were  empty ; 
and  Curtin,  carrying  out  his  employer's  instruc- 
tions that  afternoon,  after  John  had  gone  away, 
had  merely  given  the  little  knob  in  the  glass 
box  an  extra  twist. 

That  was  no  very  difficult  thing  to  do,  nor, 
being  done,  to  make  a  man  afraid.  Of  course, 
they  would  know  he  had  done  it.  He  alone  in 
the  bank  had  the  key  to  the  box,  save  on  occa- 
sions when  he  handed  it  over  to  Peters.  And 
it  was  altogether  likely  that  John  Bagsbury 
would  suspect  him  of  having  done  it  mali- 
ciously. But  it  would  be  impossible  to  prove 
such  a  suspicion  as  that ;  the  excuse  was  en- 
tirely plausible.  The  bank,  on  account  of  the 
run  that  day,  had  closed  nearly  three  hours 


The  Fourth  Day  303 

later  than  usual,  and  the  assistant  cashier,  for- 
getting to  take  that  into  account,  wound  up  the 
spring  just  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  doing,  so 
that  instead  of  opening  at  nine,  the  bolt  would 
not  fall  out  of  place  until  twelve.  They  could 
never  prove  that  he  meant  to  do  it. 

When  Sponley  had  told  him  about  it  in  the 
little  room  in  the  Eagle  Caf6,  the  prospect  of 
being  able,  with  so  small  an  act,  to  work  John 
Bagsbury  an  injury,  had  pleased  him.  And  even 
in  doing  it  he  enjoyed  the  feeling  of  guilty  excite- 
ment that  had  come  over  him.  He  hated  John, 
partly  because  of  the  various  rascalities  he  had 
been  practising  upon  the  Banker  in  the  past 
six  months,  partly  because  he  did  not  dare  hate 
Melville  Sponley.  His  resentment  of  the  insult 
the  Bear  had  paid  him  at  the  Eagle  bar  was 
simply  fuel  to  his  eagerness  to  pass  on  the 
injury  to  John.  The  cream  of  the  stratagem, 
what  he  licked  his  lips  over  as  he  rode  home 
from  the  bank,  was  that  there  could  be  no 
proof,  not  a  grain,  that  he  had  not  merely  made 
a  very  natural  mistake. 

But  for  all  that  he  was  afraid.  For  no  assign- 
able reason,  at  first,  save  that  he  was  a  coward; 
but  soon  his  cowardice  began  suggesting  reasons. 


304  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

He  thought  of  a  good  many  disquieting  possibili- 
ties during  the  evening,  and,  later,  in  the  restless 
hours  while  he  slept  or  dozed,  his  dreams  spun 
about  them  a  tangle  of  frightful  grotesques. 
Awake  or  asleep  the  Banker  troubled  him, 
pursuing  him  through  his  dreams  in  a  hundred 
horrible  shapes,  and  at  his  elbow  when  he  waked 
out  of  them  and  lay,  with  the  rigor  of  nightmare 
still  in  his  muscles  and  the  perspiration  of  fear 
on  his  skin,  trying  to  console  himself  with  the 
thought  that  there  was  nothing  they  could  prove. 
There  would  be  one  unpleasant  moment  when 
the  Banker  would  look  at  him,  perhaps  speak  to 
him,  but  that  would  soon  be  over.  If  he  could 
only  brazen  it  out  through  that,  all  would  go 
well. 

Much  as  he  dreaded  the  day  that  was  com- 
ing, he  welcomed  the  light  that  announced  it. 
At  a,  for  him,  ridiculously  early  hour,  he  dressed 
and  ordered  his  breakfast.  He  stormed  because 
it  was  not  ready ;  but  when  it  was  brought  to  him, 
he  did  not  eat  it,  for  in  the  interval  he  had  got  a 
morning  paper,  and  had  found  there  additional 
ground  for  his  uneasiness. 

There  was,  as  he  had  expected,  a  detailed 
account  of  the  run,  and  it  made  rather  good 


The  Fourth  Day  305 

reading,  ending,  as  it  did,  with  a  highly  colored 
description  of  the  coming  of  reinforcements. 
But  he  found  more  than  he  had  bargained  for 
in  another  column,  whose  head-lines  made  him 
cold  and  sick  and  hollow  at  the  stomach,  a  re- 
port of  an  interview  with  John  Bagsbury,  which 
began  with  these  words  :  — 

"  The  run  on  our  bank  to-day  was  not  an  acci- 
dent. It  was  deliberately  provoked  in  order  to 
bear  the  lard  market.  That  is  not  a  guess.  I 
am  speaking  from  knowledge." 

John  never  took  the  trouble  to  be  plausible. 
He  did  not  arrange  the  truth  to  give  it  a  lifelike 
appearance.  When  he  made  that  statement, 
boldly,  without  argument  or  corroborative  detail, 
to  the  half-dozen  reporters  who  had  gathered  in 
his  library,  they  believed  him,  and  ninety  per 
cent  of  the  men  who  read  the  words  in  news- 
paper type  next  morning  also  believed. 

Curtin  read  the  first  sentence,  then  his  eye 
glanced  swiftly  down  the  column,  looking  for 
his  own  name ;  but  there  was  small  relief  in  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  find  it  there.  He  was  cer- 
tain that  John  Bagsbury's  words  were  not  a 
bluff.  So,  wondering  how  much  the  Banker 
knew,  more  than  he  had  told  the  reporters, 


306  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Curtin  allowed  his  breakfast  to  grow  cold  and  to 
be  taken  away  untasted.  It  was  too  early  to  go 
to  the  bank,  but  there  was  nothing  else  to  do,  and 
he  could  not  keep  still,  so  he  set  out  down  town. 

What  followed  is  not  pleasant,  but  it  was 
inevitable.  He  could  not  get  a  seat  in  the  ele- 
vated train,  and  the  long  jolting  ride  left  him 
sick  and  giddy.  He  went  directly  to  the  bank, 
though  it  was  far  too  early  to  go  in,  and  after 
hesitating  a  while  on  the  steps,  he  went  away 
and  wandered  aimlessly  about  the  streets.  The 
people  he  passed  stared  at  him,  and  he  knew 
that  his  white  face  and  uncertain  walk  gave 
them  excuse  enough.  It  would  never  do  for 
John  Bagsbury  to  see  him  looking  like  that. 
He  needed  something  to  stiffen  him  up  for  that 
morning's  work,  so  he  turned  into  the  nearest  bar. 

A  man  with  an  empty  stomach  and  a  weak 
head  must  exercise  great  discretion  in  drinking 
Scotch  whiskey,  and  Curtin  knew  it.  He  would 
only  take  a  very  little.  It  would  have  been  for- 
tunate for  him  and  for  Melville  Sponley  if  after 
he  once  started  he  had  drunk  himself  to  sleep, 
or  to  the  police  station.  But  he  kept  his  prom- 
ise to  himself,  he  took  only  a  little. 

What  wonderful  stuff  that  liquid  amber  was ! 


The  Fourth  Day  307 

As  he  sipped  it,  he  felt  his  sluggish  blood  stir- 
ring ;  it  was  making  a  man  of  him.  The  fears 
of  the  night  were  gone  far  back  into  his  mem- 
ory now;  he  could  think  of  them  and  laugh. 
He  was  ready  for  whatever  might  happen  at 
the  bank.  The  moment  of  discovery  would 
not  disconcert  him  in  the  least.  He  took  one 
more  little  drink,  and  then,  with  almost  a  swag- 
ger, he  walked  back  to  the  bank.  John  Bags- 
bury  might  look  at  him  now  and  be  damned ! 

Melville  Sponley  read  the  report  of  the  inter- 
view with  John  Bagsbury  and  accorded  it  un- 
grudging admiration.  That  direct  way  of 
saying  things  was  characteristic  of  John,  and 
when  he  did  it,  it  was  immensely  effective. 
That  was  the  reward,  the  Bear  reflected,  which 
sometimes  comes  to  a  man  who  never  drives  a 
hard  bargain  with  the  truth.  This  blurting  out 
of  the  whole  story  was  a  good  move.  It  was 
worthy  of  the  very  pretty  fight  the  Banker  had 
been  making  this  past  week. 

The  Bear  could  afford  to  look  with  ironical 
indulgence  on  John's  last  desperate  efforts  to 
save  himself,  because  he  knew  how  futile  they 
were.  The  Bear  was  in  high  feather.  There 


308  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

was  some  credit  in  beating  a  combination  like 
Pickering  and  Bagsbury.  Bagsbury  was,  bar 
one,  the  best  man  in  the  city. 

His  eye  fell  upon  the  vacant  place  across  the 
table,  and  he  came  back  sharply  to  present 
realities.  He  had  not  seen  Harriet  since  Tues- 
day afternoon,  had  heard  nothing  from  her 
since  the  little  note  asking  him  to  excuse  her 
for  not  coming  down  to  dinner.  He  had  gone 
to  the  Bagsburys'  house  twice  on  Wednesday, 
but  neither  time  had  she  been  able  to  see  him. 

He  missed  her,  even  in  busy  times  like  these. 
He  wanted  to  talk  over  this  last  action  with  her 
before  he  went  into  it;  not  that  he  needed  any 
help,  but  simply  for  the  stimulating  effect  of 
her  interest.  He  had  thought  a  good  many 
times  in  the  last  year  that  she  was  not  her  old 
self ;  that  she  had  been  losing  her  sure  grasp  of 
a  situation  and  her  quick  eye  for  an  opportu- 
nity ;  but  he  saw  now  how  badly  he  had  mis- 
judged her.  Her  foresight  in  warning  John 
when  it  was  too  late  to  do  any  harm,  but  so 
that  it  might  help  to  straighten  out  the  tangle 
afterward,  delighted  him,  and  assured  him  that 
she  was  still  the  Harriet  of  ten  years  ago.  And 
how  plucky  she  was !  She  had  been  too  tired 


The  Fourth  Day  309 

to  come  down  to  dinner,  but  she  had  nerved 
herself  for  that  long  ride  down  to  the  Bags- 
burys'  house  to  carry  out  the  stratagem  that  had 
occurred  to  her.  She  must  have  been  horribly 
fagged  to  have  broken  down  that  way,  though. 
Perhaps  it  was  just  as.  well  that  she  was  spared 
the  exciting  days  that  were  following  her  col- 
lapse. They  could  talk  it  all  over  afterward, 
anyway.  And  he  was  glad  that  it  was  his  last 
fight. 

He  had  meant  to  stop  on  his  way  to  the 
office  and  find  out  what  her  condition  was  this 
morning ;  now  he  decided  to  telephone  instead  ; 
but,  just  before  he  went  out,  he  changed  his 
mind  once  more.  He  would  do  neither.  She 
might  want  to  see  him  and  ask  a  lot  of  ques- 
tions, and  it  was  better  that  he  should  keep 
entirely  out  of  the  way  for  a  little  longer.  It 
would  all  be  over  by  noon. 

When  Sponley  reached  his  office  at  nine 
o'clock,  he  found  Stewart  and  Ray  waiting  for 
him.  He  nodded  to  them  cordially. 

"  We're  going  to  have  great  times  this  morn- 
ing. This  is  going  to  be  the  last  day  of  it. 
You'll  find  cigars  in  my  desk  there.  Help 
yourselves,  will  you?" 


3io  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"We  haven't  much  time  for  a  smoke  before 
the  fun  begins,  have  we  ? "  one  of  them  asked. 

Sponley  had  disappeared  in  a  little  closet, 
where  he  seemed  to  be  rumaging  about  in 
search  of  something,  and  it  was  a  minute  or 
two  before  he  answered.  When  he  came  out, 
he  brought  a  shiny  old  alpaca  coat  and  a  crum- 
pled felt  hat. 

"  Yes,  you  will,"  he  answered  ;  "  all  the  time 
you  want.  I'm  going  to  attend  to  the  fun  to- 
day myself." 

One  would  not  have  called  his  face  heavy  at 
that  moment,  and  his  laugh  had  an  almost  boy- 
ish ring.  He  slipped  on  the  coat,  and  thrust 
his  hands  luxuriously  into  the  sagging  pockets. 

"  This  old  rig  has  been  through  many  a  fight, 
but  never  a  one  better  than  there'll  be  to-day. 
By  the  Lord  Harry,  gentlemen,  I  wouldn't  miss 
it  for  fifty  thousand  dollars." 

He  stowed  away  a  little  package  of  memo- 
randum cards  and  a  couple  of  hard  pencils,  and 
moved  to  leave  the  office.  "  I'm  going  up  to  the 
floor  now,"  he  said. 

"  You're  wanted  at  the  telephone,  Mr.  Spon- 
ley," said  his  clerk,  coming  out  of  the  cabinet. 

It  was  Curtin  who  had  called  him  up,  and 


The  Fourth  Day  311 

the  moment  the  Bear  recognized  his  voice  he 
demanded,  — 

"  Where  are  you  ? " 

"  At  the  bank,"  the  assistant  cashier  answered. 

"  Ring  off  right  away  then,"  said  Sponley.  "  I 
told  you  not  to  run  that  risk." 

"It's  all  safe  enough,"  he  could  hear  Cur- 
tin  laugh,  "they  aren't  watching  the  'phone 
just  now.  They're  all  over  by  the  vaults." 

"  Have  they  found  out  anything  ? " 

"  No,  they  think  it'll  come  open  in  a  minute." 

"All  right,"  said  the  Bear;  "but  don't  call 
me  up  again  in  any  case.  You  wound  it  up  till 
twelve,  didn't  you  ? " 

There  was  a  moment's  pause,  then  came  the 
short  rattle  of  the  ring  for  disconnection.  Cur- 
tin  must  have  seen  some  one  coming  and  rung 
off.  Sponley  was  glad  the  assistant  cashier  had 
so  much  discretion. 

At  twenty  minutes  after  nine,  when  the  Bear, 
with  a  word  of  greeting  to  the  guard  at  the 
entrance,  came  out  on  the  floor,  it  was,  to  the 
unaccustomed  eyes  and  ears  in  the  crowded 
gallery,  already  a  bedlam.  Traders  and  clerks 
were  grouped  about  that  big  room,  talking  in 
every  key  of  excitement,  and  little  messenger 


312  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

boys,  to  whom  nothing  mattered  until  the  bell 
rang,  larked  about,  pelting  one  another  with 
handfuls  of  sample  grain,  and  making  a  gratui- 
tous addition  to  the  uproar.  All  the  while, 
monotonous  and  incessant,  the  metallic  chatter 
of  scores  of  telegraph  instruments  made  a  long 
organ-point  against  the  varying  pitch  of  the 
voice  of  the  crowd. 

Sponley  breathed  a  long  sigh  of  complete 
contentment  as  the  old  air  and  the  familiar 
noises  greeted  him.  The  pervasive,  inarticulate 
sound  was  as  perfectly  intelligible  to  him  as 
is  the  song  of  the  locomotive  to  an  old  railroad 
engineer.  He  knew  every  cadence  of  it.  He 
walked  slowly  across  toward  the  provision  pit, 
and  before  he  had  taken  twenty  paces  he  felt 
that  every  man  in  the  great  room  knew  of  his 
presence  and  was  wondering  what  it  portended. 
His  half-shut  eyes  that  were  everywhere,  saw 
Keyes  scribble  a  note  and  despatch  a  messenger 
boy  with  it  on  the  run,  and  he  smiled.  That 
note  did  not  contain  pleasant  news  for  Pickering. 

This  was  his  last  day,  the  last  of  a  multitude 
of  days,  and  safe,  as  this  one  was,  or  precari- 
ous, he  had  enjoyed  them  all.  He  wished  there 
were  to  be  more  of  them.  But  he  had  promised 


The  Fourth  Day  313 

Harriet  and  himself,  and  he  was  particular  about 
such  promises.  He  would  enjoy  the  little  that 
was  left,  however. 

Then  there  ^ame  to  him  a  notion,  an  ironical, 
whimsical  notion  that  pleased  him,  and  he  stood 
still,  smiling  over  it.  He  would  set  a  period  to 
this  delectable  experience.  His  opponent  should 
have  an  hour  and  a  half.  He  would  begin  now 
in  three  —  two  and  three-quarters — minutes,  and 
at  eleven  o'clock  his  bear's  hug  should  squeeze 
the  last  gasp  out  of  Pickering.  It  was  anything 
but  hard  business  sense,  but  for  this  once  he 
could  afford  the  luxury  of  following  a  fancy,  as 
pretty  a  fancy  as  that. 

Then  the  big  bell  rang  out  half-past  nine,  and 
the  trading  began.  It  had  been  long  since 
Sponley  had  taken  the  field  in  person,  but  not 
so  long  that  men  had  forgotten  that  he  was  the 
best  operator  on  the  board.  That  he  was,  was 
due  partly  to  his  impassivity,  partly  to  his 
quickness ;  but  more  than  either,  apparently,  to 
his  mere  bulk,  or  at  least  to  a  certain  oppres- 
sion which  seemed  to  emanate  from  it.  Keyes 
was  a  good  man,  an  old  hand  at  the  business, 
he  knew  every  trick  of  it,  but  he  felt  as  if 
Pickering's  defeat  were  already  accomplished 


314  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

when  he  looked  at  Sponley  standing  there,  at 
the  other  side  of  the  pit. 

None  the  less  he  held  his  ground  gallantly ; 
for  the  first  three-quarters  of  an  hour  he  never 
gave  an  inch.  But  it  was  a  game  of  follow 
the  leader  by  that  time.  It  seemed  that  every 
trader  on  the  floor  was  coming  to  the  provision 
pit,  to  make  a  short  sale  and  take  a  little  share 
in  Sponley's  certain  victory.  No  one  could 
stand  for  long  against  such  a  pressure  as  that, 
and  the  price  began  dropping,  a  notch  at  a  time, 
at  first,  but  faster  afterwards  and  down,  down, 
down  it  went,  sliding. 

At  a  quarter  before  eleven  there  came  a 
check  and  then  a  smart  rally  of  a  point  or  two. 
Sponley  glanced  up  at  the  big  clock,  and  he 
smiled.  He  was  going  to  hit  it  almost  exactly. 
He  had  expected  this  turn,  he  knew  just  what 
it  meant.  Pickering  was  of  the  sort  who  die 
hard,  and  now,  as  he  came  so  desperately  near 
the  extreme  edge,  he  was  gathering  every  ounce 
of  fight  into  this  last  plunge.  Without  hurry 
and  without  discomposure,  Sponley  hammered 
the  price  back  again,  and  the  narrow  margin 
was  almost  nothing. 

Outside,  in  the  street,  a  carriage  with  three 


The  Fourth  Day  315 

men  in  it  was  driving  up  furiously,  reckless  of 
the  shouts  from  the  policeman  at  the  corner. 
When  it  stopped  before  the  Board  of  Trade 
building,  Pickering  was  still  righting,  but  already 
half  over  the  edge. 

That  was  six  minutes  of  eleven. 


CHAPTER  XX 

ASSAULT   AND    BATTERY 

DICK  has  never  been  able  satisfactorily  to 
explain  why,  as  soon  as  she  had  finished  her 
breakfast  that  morning,  she  went  to  the  bank. 
Just  before  starting  she  told  Alice  that  John 
had  run  off  without  his  eye-glasses,  and  that  she 
was  going  to  take  them  down  to  him,  which  was 
true,  but  not  entirely  adequate.  She  told  her- 
self that  since  Mrs.  Sponley's  fever  had  abated, 
she  was  sure  to  want  to  know  all  about  the  hap- 
penings of  the  day  before,  and  that  telling  her 
might  have  serious  consequences.  Alice  would 
not  be  able  to  give  her  any  information  about 
it,  and  the  morning  paper  containing  the  inter- 
view that  had  so  badly  frightened  Curtin  had 
been  stuffed,  as  soon  as  Dick  had  read  it,  into 
John's  pocket,  and  was  now  on  its  way  down  town. 
So  that  if  Dick  herself  was  well  out  of  the  way, 
Mrs.  Sponley  might  have  whatever  poor  hap- 
piness ignorance  affords,  for  a  while  longer. 
316 


Assault  and  Battery  317 

That  was  an  excellent  reason.  A  year  later 
Jack  Dorlin  told  her  that  she  came  to  the  bank 
on  Thursday  morning  simply  because  he  had 
not  come  to  see  her  Wednesday  evening,  which 
was  a  piece  of  impudence  Dick  could  well 
afford  to  answer  merely  with  an  infinitely 
scornful  smile. 

They  met  at  the  corner,  half  a  square  away 
from  the  bank. 

"What  on  earth  has  brought  you  down 
here  ? "  he  exclaimed,  as  he  came  up  with  her. 
"Has  anything  gone  wrong  ?  " 

She  waived  the  question.  "  Hello,  Jack," 
was  all  she  said.  There  was  small  matter  in 
the  words  to  blush  over ;  but  the  color  sprang 
into  her  face,  for  something  in  the  inflection  of 
them  had  been  almost  a  caress,  and  the  fact 
that  she  had  not  offered  him  her  hand  and  that 
she  had  barely  glanced  at  him  lent  an  emphasis 
to  it  that  he  would  be  sure  to  understand. 

They  walked  a  score  of  paces  in  silence. 
The  mere  sense  of  nearness  that  came  to  them 
in  the  crowd  was  good  enough  without  seeking 
to  better  it  by  talking.  But  the  words  that 
hung  in  Jack's  throat  had  to  come  out  at  last. 

"  There's  something  I  must  tell  you  —  " 


318  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

Not  there  on  that  crowded  sidewalk,  with 
bank  clerks  and  messenger  boys,  lawyers  and 
merchants,  rich  men,  poor  men,  beggar  men, 
—  all  hurrying  and  jostling  past, — to  slip  be- 
tween them,  and  make  an  interruption  at  every 
three  words.  No,  certainly  not  there,  if  Dick 
could  help  it.  So  Jack,  who  for  all  he  knew 
of  his  surroundings  at  that  moment  might  have 
been  walking  down  a  grassy  lane,  between  haw- 
thorn hedges  that  breathed  softly  into  the  moon- 
light ;  Jack,  who  knew  only  that  it  was  Dick's 
hand  that  brushed  lightly  by  his  own;  poor, 
stupid  Jack  must  needs  again  be  interrupted. 

"There  are  a  lot  of  things  you  must  tell  me," 
she  said.  "All  I  know  about  what  happened 
yesterday  is  what  I  saw  in  this  morning's  paper. 
John  was  so  thoroughly  tired  out  when  he  came 
home  that,  as  soon  as  he  could  get  rid  of  the 
reporters,  he  went  to  bed,  and  —  " 

She  was  talking  aimlessly,  for  she  saw  how  he 
was  misunderstanding  her,  how  her  words  must 
be  hurting  him,  and  she  could  think  of  nothing 
but  that.  Why,  oh,  why  had  he  made  her  do  it ! 

Though  he  mistook  the  reason,  he  saw  that 
the  situation  was  painful  to  her,  and  he  came 
quickly  to  the  rescue. 


Assault  and  Battery  319 

"  You  haven't  told  me  why  you've  come  down 
here  at  this  time  in  the  morning,"  he  said  easily. 
"There's  nothing  wrong  with  Mr.  Bagsbury,  I 
hope." 

His  consideration  for  her,  even  at  such  a 
moment,  touched  her.  The  tremulous  bright- 
ness of  her  eyes  would  have  told  him  something 
if  he  had  looked  up  at  them.  She  herself  had 
forgotten  by  that  time  where  they  were  stand- 
ing. 

"It's  nothing — I  mean  nothing  important. 
I  want  to  see  John  for  a  minute." 

"  It's  pretty  early  for  him  yet,  isn't  it  ? "  asked 
Jack.  Still  he  would  not  look  at  her.  They 
were  standing  just  before  the  entrance  to  the 
bank,  but  she  did  not  move  to  go  in.  Hills- 
mead  came  bustling  up,  and,  as  he  passed  them, 
lifted  his  hat  in  his  latest  and  most  impressive 
manner ;  but  they  looked  at  him  with  unseeing 
eyes.  He  would  have  had  the  same  sort  of 
reception  had  he  been  a  six-gun  field  battery, 
or  a  circus  parade  with  caged  animals. 

"Is  it?"  she  asked  listlessly.  "He  started 
before  I  did  —  oh,  of  course ;  he  walks.  I  for- 
got that." 

Then  her  tone  changed  quickly.     "I  think 


320  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

I'll  go  in  and  wait  for  him.  It'll  be  all  right 
for  me  to  stay  in  his  office  till  he  comes,  won't 
it?" 

He  nodded  assent,  and  led  the  way  into  the 
bank.  They  passed  Hillsmead  as  they  turned 
in  behind  the  rail,  and  Jack  wondered  why  he 
wore  that  peculiar  expression.  But  he  did  not 
think  of  Hillsmead  for  more  than  a  fraction  of 
a  second. 

He  ushered  Dick  into  the  private  office,  raised 
a  window,  and  placed  a  chair  for  her  near  by 
where  she  could  feel  the  breeze.  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve it  will  be  very  long  before  he  comes,"  he 
said. 

Then  with  an  effort  he  added :  "  I  can't  stay 
here.  I  —  I  have  my  work,  you  see  —  " 

He  turned  toward  the  door,  but  before  he 
reached  it  she  spoke  his  name. 

"Don't  go  away,  Jack.  I  want  —  tell  me 
what  you  started  to  tell  me  out  there." 

She  had  not  taken  the  chair  he  had  placed 
for  her,  but  was  standing  close  by  the  window. 
He  could  not  see  her  face. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  done  that,"  he  said.  "  You 
had  answered  me  already.  It  was  wrong  in  me 
to  try  to  compel  you  to  do  it  more  directly.  I 


Assault  and  Battery  321 

presumed  on  your  liking  me,  and  wanting  to  be 
kind  to  me." 

He  dropped  down  in  John's  big  desk  chair, 
and,  bending  forward,  pressed  his  clasped  hands 
together  between  his  knees. 

"  It  is  just  what  I  tried  to  tell  you  a  week  ago 
last  night  in  the  Bagsburys'  library,"  he  went 
on,  speaking  slowly  and  precisely ;  "  nothing  but 
just  this :  that  I  know  what  it  really  means  now 
to  love  you,  Dick.  I  didn't  know  those  other 
times  when  I  told  you.  You  were  right  about 
that.  Now  that  I  really  understand,  I  can  see 
how  little  I  understood  before.  And  until  that 
night,  I  hoped  that  you  knew  I  really  under- 
stood, and  that  you  —  " 

If  he  had  looked  at  her,  he  would  have 
stopped  there,  but  his  eyes  were  still  averted, 
and  he  labored  painfully  on  through  a  bog  of 
words,  until  at  last,  mercifully,  she  interrupted 
him. 

"That  wasn't  what   you  told  me  the  other 
night.     You  only  told  me  that  you  had  found 
out  that  I  was  right  when  I  said  you  didn't  — 
you   didn't  —  know.     John  came  in  then,  and 
I  —  " 

But  then  the  words  she  had  meant  to  say  sud- 


322  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

denly  refused  to  be  said.  For  the  first  time 
she  realized  that  they  were  not  true.  He 
did  not  change  his  position,  but  she  heard  his 
breath  coming  quicker.  He  was  holding  him- 
self hard. 

"  I  suppose  I  did  commit  such  a  piece  of 
idiocy  as  that.  It's  just  what  I'd  be  likely  to  do. 
I'm  getting  tired  of  being  such  an  utterly  — 
hopeless  —  " 

It  was  her  hand,  laid  lightly  on  his  lips,  that 
checked  him  there.  "You  mustn't  say  such 
things  about  yourself  any  more,"  she  said.  She 
took  her  hand  away,  but  remained  standing 
close  beside  him. 

Still  he  did  not  raise  his  eyes. 

"  You  are  stupid  this  morning,  though,"  she 
said,  and  her  voice  was  quivering.  "Jack  — 
Jack,  are  you  —  going  to  make  me  —  " 

Then,  at  last,  he  rose  swiftly  to  his  feet;  and 
he  looked  at  her  as  though  to  make  up  in  that 
first  moment  for  a  six  months'  blindness.  He 
caught  her  hands  timidly,  as  though  he  expected 
that  they  would  resist ;  but  they  lay  quite  con- 
tentedly in  his  and  he  gripped  them  tighter. 

"  Do  they  mean  what  they're  telling  me  ? " 
he  asked  breathlessly.  "  Do  you  know  what 


Assault  and  Battery  323 

they're  telling  me?"  But  he  needed  no  other 
answer  than  what  he  saw  in  her  face,  and  though 
he  let  go  her  hands,  it  was  that  he  might  hold 
her  close  in  the  circle  of  his  arms. 

"You  didn't  believe  what  I  said  that  night, 
did  you,  Dick  ?  You  knew  what  I  was  trying 
to  say." 

A  tremulous  little  sigh  of  complete  happiness 
was  all  her  answer  at  first,  but  afterward  she 
said :  — 

"  Yes,  I  knew,  of  course,  all  the  time.  I  told 
myself  that  you  meant  that  you  had  found  out 
you  didn't  care,  and  I  tried  to  make  myself 
believe  it.  But  if  I'd  been  afraid  that  I  really 
should  believe  it  —  " 

He  interrupted  her,  but  not  by  speaking. 

There  are  occasions  when  arbitrary  divisions 
of  time,  such  as  minutes,  cease  to  have  any 
particular  significance,  and  we  can  but  guess 
from  collateral  evidence  how  much  later  it  was 
when  Dick,  after  a  glance  into  the  street  below, 
said  with  a  laugh,  — 

"There  comes  John,  now." 

"  Let  him  come.  He's  a  malevolent  sort  of 
wretch.  He  laid  his  plans,  you  see,  to  come 
down  and  interrupt  us  again,  just  at  a  —  a 


324  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

critical  moment;  but  for  once  he's  too  late. 
We  foiled  him." 

"  We  ?  "  she  questioned  demurely.  "  He'd 
have  been  here  in  plenty  of  time  if  — " 

But  she  should  not  have  expected  to  be 
allowed  to  finish  a  sentence  like  that. 

"  Jack  !  Let  me  go.  Please  let  me  go.  Oh, 
he's  coming ! " 

"  It  will  be  such  a  fine  surprise  for  Mr.  Bags- 
bury,"  he  answered  placidly. 

But  John  was  not  to  have  his  surprise  just 
then.  Before  he  reached  the  outer  office  he 
was  stopped  by  Mr.  Peters. 

"There's  a  good  one  on  us,  Mr.  Bagsbury. 
We  can't  get  into  either  of  the  big  vaults.  The 
time-locks  are  still  going.  They  ought  to  have 
come  open  a  quarter  of  an  hour  ago.  Curtin 
says  he  set  them  just  as  usual,  but  I  suppose  he 
must  have  wound  them  a  little  too  far.  That 
would  be  easy  enough  to  do.  They're  likely 
to  come  open  any  minute  now." 

"  Where  is  Curtin  ?  "  John  asked. 

"  He's  somewhere  about.  Oh,  I  guess  he's 
in  the  telephone  box." 

There  was,  after  all,  a  fundamental  error  in 
Melville  Sponley's  calculations  which  would 


Assault  and  Battery  325 

probably  have  beaten  him  even  if  luck  had 
turned  things  differently;  if,  for  instance, 
Curtin  had  not  chosen  that  particular  moment 
for  his  telephoning.  The  Bear  had  never  in  the 
course  of  the  fight,  and  particularly  not  in  this 
last  turn  of  it,  reckoned  upon  the  quickness  of 
John's  intuitions.  Most  men  would  have  taken 
the  obvious  explanation  instead  of  the  far  more 
remote  one,  and  until  it  was  too  late  would  have 
waited  for  the  vaults  to  open  themselves.  John 
would  have  been  too  late  had  he  been  obliged 
to  wait  for  the  laborious  processes  of  reason  to 
guide  him ;  but  thanks  to  insight,  or  imagina- 
tion, or  genius,  or  whatever  you  may  be  pleased 
to  call  it,  he  moved  swiftly.  Before  Peters  had 
finished  speaking,  John  understood  the  whole 
trick,  and,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  he  had 
no  doubt  of  his  understanding. 

He  looked  about  thoughtfully  for  a  moment. 
Then  he  said  to  Peters  :  — 

"  Don't  interfere  in  what's  going  to  happen. 
I  know  exactly  what  I'm  going  to  do." 

With  that  he  walked  rapidly  toward  the  open 
door  of  the  telephone  box. 

He  had  no  intention  of  stealing  up  and  taking 
Curtin  unawares,  but  chance  brought  it  about. 


326  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

The  rubber  matting  deadened  his  footfalls,  and 
as  he  drew  nearer,  a  movement  by  one  of  the 
clerks  attracted  Curtin's  attention  in  the  other 
direction.  Even  at  that,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
intoxication  induced  by  the  whiskey  and  by  the 
excitement  of  the  moment,  Curtin  must  have 
perceived  John's  presence  before  the  Banker 
had  come  within  a  single  pace  of  him.  But  as 
it  happened,  John  was  not  an  arm's  length  away 
when  Curtin  said,  "  They  think  it'll  come  open 
in  a  minute." 

It  was  not,  as  Sponley  thought,  discretion 
that  stopped  him  then,  but  a  big,  lean  forearm 
which  came  under  his  chin,  bending  his  head 
back  suddenly  so  that  every  muscle  in  his  body 
turned  limp  as  rags  and  the  terrible  grip  of  the 
inner  crook  of  an  elbow  which  throttled  him. 
As  his  hands  involuntarily  flew  to  release  his 
throat,  John  caught  the  receiver  away  from  him 
and  clapped  it  to  his  own  ear.  He  heard  Spon- 
ley say, — 

"  Locked  it  up  till  twelve,  didn't  you  ?  " 

Then  he  rang  off,  and  tightening  his  grip  on 

Curtin,    backed    out    of    the    cabinet.      Every 

man  in  the  bank,  save  the  one  who  remained 

deep   in  oblivion  in  the  inner  private  office, 


Assault  and  Battery  327 

came  running  to  the  spot,  but  they  did  not  need 
John's  quick  admonition  not  to  interfere. 

Curtin  had  ceased  even  to  appear  to  struggle. 
He  simply  hung,  so  much  dead  weight,  from 
John  Bagsbury's  rigid  elbow. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  I've  broken  your  neck 
or  not.  I  hope  not.  Come  into  my  office.  There 
are  some  things  I'd  like  to  have  you  tell  me." 

He  let  his  arm  relax,  and  Curtin  tumbled  in  a 
heap  on  the  floor. 

With  an  exclamation  of  impatience  John 
lifted  him,  and  half  dragged,  half  led  him  down 
the  aisle.  The  door  of  the  outer  office  was  open. 
When  he  reached  the  inner  one,  he  kicked  it 
open  and  thrust  Curtin  forward.  The  man 
went  staggering  across  the  room,  until  he  stum- 
bled and  fell  upon  the  cracked  old  leather  sofa 
which  groaned  under  his  sudden  impact. 

Jack  Dorlin  had  taken  Dick  by  the  shoulders 
and  gently  pulled  her  out  of  Curtin's  zigzag 
course  ;  then  they  stood  quite  still  watching  him 
as  he  lay  there,  with  one  hand  fumbling  at  his 
throat. 

Dick  knew  that  John  Bagsbury  was  standing 
in  the  doorway.  She  could  hear  his  loud,  slow 
breathing,  but  she  did  not  turn  to  look  at  him, 


328  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

for  she  guessed  that  the  expression  in  his  face 
was  one  that  she  would  rather  not  be  able  to 
remember.  He  was  looking  at  her  and  at  Jack 
in  a  puzzled  way,  as  though  he  suspected  them 
of  being  merely  a  hallucination.  Dick  was  the 
first  to  speak :  — 

"  I  think  he  is  fainting.  Will  you  get  some 
water,  Jack  ? " 

The  sound  of  her  voice  brought  John  Bags- 
bury  to  himself  again.  "  I  did  not  know  you 
were  in  here,"  he  said  simply.  Then,  as  Jack 
Dorlin  left  the  room,  he  added  :  "I'm  glad  you 
were.  I  was  pretty  mad.  I  was  —  I  was  all 
right  until  I  felt  him  in  my  hands,  but  that  was 
too  much  for  me." 

Without  reply  she  moved  toward  the  sofa. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  To  loosen  his  collar,"  she  replied  laconically. 
"  Somebody's  got  to  do  it." 

"  I  will,"  he  said,  and  with  shaking  hands  he 
did. 

Curtin  revived  quickly  when  Jack  Dorlin 
dashed  the  water  in  his  face,  and  he  sat  up 
feebly  and  looked  about  the  room.  Dick  turned 
away  to  the  window,  and  in  a  moment  Jack 
stepped  to  her  side. 


Assault  and  Battery  329 

"Why  are  all  those  people  waiting  out 
there  ? "  she  asked  in  an  undertone. 

He  glanced  down  into  the  street.  There 
was,  as  on  yesterday,  a  little  knot  of  people 
standing  about  the  door. 

"  Come  here  and  look,  Mr.  Bagsbury,"  said 
Jack,  quietly. 

It  was  not  the  angry  man  of  five  minutes 
ago,  nor  the  John  Bagsbury  who  had  just  been 
talking  to  Dick,  nothing  but  the  Banker  who 
spoke  to  Jack  Dorlin,  after  a  glance  out  of  the 
window. 

"  I  have  some  business  to  talk  over  with  Mr. 
Curtin,"  he  said  swiftly ;  "  but  I've  no  time  for 
that  just  now.  Will  you  look  after  him,  Dorlin, 
until  I'm  at  liberty  again  ? " 

Without  waiting  for  Jack  to  reply,  he  strode 
out  of  the  office  and  shut  the  door  behind  him. 

"  I  suppose  I'd  better  go,"  said  Dick. 

Jack  was  very  close  to  her,  standing  between 
her  and  Curtin,  and  he  spoke  almost  in  a 
whisper :  "  I  suppose  so.  I  wish  you  were  my 
prisoner  instead  of  —  " 

There  is  your  chance,  Curtin.  You  know 
it  is  less  than  a  ten-foot  drop  from  that  open 
window  to  the  sidewalk.  Once  out  there,  you 


330  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

are  safe  enough.  It  will  hardly  be  worth  while 
trying  to  prove  anything  against  you  in  a  court 
of  law ;  all  you  are  afraid  of  is  John  Bagsbury. 
If  you  will  be  quick,  he  will  not  be  able  to  get 
his  hands  on  you  again. 

He  thought  of  all  that.  If  he  could  have  had 
one  good  drink  of  whiskey,  he  would  have  tried 
it ;  but  as  it  was,  he  only  took  a  hesitating  step 
toward  the  window,  and  Dick  saw. 

"  Be  careful,  Jack  !  "  she  said. 

He  turned  quickly  about  and  understood. 
"  Do  you  feel  that  breeze  too  much,  Mr.  Cur- 
tin  ?  Don't  move.  I'll  close  the  window." 

When  he  had  closed  and  locked  it,  Dick  was 
gone. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Curtin. 

The  narrowness  of  his  escape  from  such  a 
blunder  made  Jack  uncomfortable,  but  exceed- 
ingly alert.  He  sat  in  John's  chair,  and  for 
what  seemed  to  him  half  the  morning  his  eyes 
at  least  never  wandered  from  the  man  on  the 
sofa. 

It  was  really  a  little  less  than  half  an  hour 
before  John  Bagsbury  came  back  into  the 
room.  He  was  still  only  the  Banker,  quick  of 
speech  and  placid  of  mind. 


Assault  and  Battery  331 

"  Now,  I'm  ready  to  talk  with  you,  Mr. 
Curtin.  No  —  don't  go,  Dorlin.  We  have 
arranged  for  what  currency  we  need  for  the 
present,  and  there'll  be  some  experts  here  in  a 
few  minutes  now,  to  see  if  they  can  do  any- 
thing with  the  vaults." 

"  Are  they  going  to  run  us  again  to-day  ? " 
asked  Jack. 

"  I  don't  think  so,"  said  the  Banker,  smiling. 
"Those  people  we  saw  were  bringing  their 
money  back.  They  didn't  want  it  for  more 
than  one  night." 

He  turned  to  Curtin.  "  Mr.  Sponley  is  doing 
a  good  morning's  work,"  he  said.  "  He's  on 
the  floor  himself,  and  from  the  way  it  looks 
now  he  will  beat  Pickering  inside  of  two  hours. 
If  he  does  that,  of  course  they  may  run  us 
again." 

The  Banker  looked  thoughtfully  out  of  the 
window  for  a  moment,  then  he  continued : 
"  You  have  done  a  good  many  questionable 
things,  Mr.  Curtin,  since  you  came  here  six 
months  ago,  and  you  have  done  one  or  two  things 
in  the  last  day  or  two  that  are  unquestion- 
able. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  I  can  have 
you  committed  to  prison  for  a  considerable  term 


332  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

of  years.  I  think  there  is  enough  in  what  you 
told  Hauxton  Tuesday  afternoon,  and  in  your 
manipulating  the  time-locks  yesterday,  to  ac- 
complish that.  But  I'm  not  sure  that  I  want 
to.  I  should  gain  nothing,  not  even  the  per- 
sonal satisfaction  for  an  injury.  You've  been 
acting  on  instructions,  I  suppose.  I  have  still 
another  hand  to  play  with  the  man  who  gave 
you  those  instructions." 

"  He'll  beat  you,"  said  Curtin,  sullenly. 

"  And  I  want  you  to  act  in  my  interest  while 
I  play  it,"  John  went  on  evenly.  "  That  course 
can't  be  less  to  your  advantage  than  the  one 
you've  been  following.  I  want  you  now  to 
answer  some  questions.  When  will  those 
vaults  come  open?" 

"I  don't  —  " 

"  The  truth !  "  thundered  John,  moving  for- 
ward, and  Curtin  went  white.  "Tell  me  the 
truth,  Mr.  Curtin." 

"At  twelve  o'clock." 

"  That  is  true,"  said  John,  "  I  know.  Now 
please  tell  me  just  how  you  came  to  do  it." 

"  Oh,  damn  you ! "  said  Curtin,  brokenly. 
"  Damn  both  of  you !  You'll  tear  me  to  pieces 
between  you.  He  made  me  do  it." 


Assault  and  Battery  333 

"  I  know  he  did.  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
how." 

Sullenly,  brazenly,  fearfully,  shiftily,  and  with 
many  intervals  of  feeble  blasphemous  ravings 
against  the  two  strong  men  who  had  ground 
him  between  them,  Curtin  told  the  long  story, 
and  John  listened  with  half  his  mind,  while  the 
other  half  was  making  plans.  But  at  last  some- 
thing caught  his  whole  attention. 

"  Say  that  again,"  he  commanded.  "  You 
tell  me  that  Sponley  laid  violent  hands  on  you, 
yesterday  afternoon,  in  the  bar-room  of  the 
Eagle  Caf£  ?  Was  there  a  witness  present  ? " 

"  The  barkeeper." 

John  sprang  to  his  feet.  "That's  what  I 
want,"  he  said  exultantly,  and  his  jaws  came 
together  with  a  snap.  "  Dorlin,  will  you  order  a 
carriage,  quick  ?  We'll  have  to  cut  it  fine." 

Then  his  strong  lips  bent  in  an  ironical  smile. 

"You'll  come  with  me,  Mr.  Curtin,  to  the 
nearest  justice  and  swear  out  a  warrant  for 
Sponley's  arrest  on  a  charge  of  assault  and 
battery." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A  CORNER 

THE  withered,  leering,  old  Goddess  of  Luck 
must  have  grinned  wide  that  morning.  To 
smile  knowingly  over  men's  hopes  is  her  de- 
light; but  to  smile  behind  the  back  of  a  man 
who  is  smiling,  is  the  double  distillation  of 
pleasure.  Melville  Sponley  had  never  enjoyed 
living  before  as  in  those  minutes,  one  or  two 
less  than  ninety,  while  he  played  cautiously 
and  allowed  Pickering  some  small  hope  of  win- 
ning, and  postponed  planting  the  last  thrust  in 
him  until  the  hour  he  himself  had  set  should 
have  fully  come.  He  had  had  fancies  of  this 
kind  before,  but  never  had  he  indulged  one  of 
them,  and  so  this  had  the  added  delight  of 
novelty. 

But  while  he  waited,  John  Bagsbury,  whom 

he  thought  to  be  no  longer  in  the  game,  was 

taking  a  hand  in  this  last  dealing  of  the  cards. 

When  Sponley  smiled  over  Pickering's  last  des- 

334 


A   Corner  335 

perate  rally,  Jervis  Curtin  had  already  sworn  out 
a  warrant  that  was  to  confound  him.  And 
when,  after  an  amused  glance  at  the  big  clock, 
the  Bear  began  to  deliver  the  final  attack,  it 
was  too  late,  for  the  carriage  that  had  driven 
through  the  streets  in  such  reckless  hurry  had 
already  pulled  up  before  the  Board  of  Trade 
building. 

The  men  inside  came  tumbling  out  before  it 
had  fairly  stopped;  they  crossed  the  sidewalk 
and  the  wide  vestibule  at  a  run  and  dashed 
upstairs,  three  steps  at  a  stride,  to  the  entrance 
to  the  floor. 

There  they  stopped  and  peered  frowning  into 
the  crowd.  One  of  them,  it  was  John  Bags- 
bury,  began  giving  swift  instructions  to  the 
other  two,  and  they  followed  with  their  eyes 
the  direction  of  his  pointing  finger.  In  a 
moment  they  nodded  comprehendingly,  and  as 
John  turned  away,  they  moved  out  on  the 
floor. 

The  old  policeman  who  guards  the  entrance 
—  a  landmark  he  is  in  that  place  where  men 
come  and  go  so  quickly  —  stepped  in  front  of 
them,  saying  that  visitors  were  not  allowed  on 
the  floor.  But  they  jerked  their  coats  open 


336  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

impatiently  so  that  he  could  see  the  stars  that 
were  pinned  inside  them,  and  then  walked 
briskly  over  to  the  provision  pit.  They  climbed 
the  pair  of  steps  outside  the  circle,  and  one 
waited  on  the  rim,  while  the  other  wriggled  his 
way  through  the  dense  press  of  men  down 
toward  the  centre.  He  laid  his  hand  on  the 
Bear's  wide  shoulder. 

"  You're  Melville  Sponley,  aren't  you  ?  " 

The  Bear  was  making  an  entry  on  his  card, 
and  he  paid  no  heed. 

The  hand  gripped  his  shoulder  more  tightly. 
"  Isn't  your  name  Melville  Sponley  ? " 

"That's  it,"  he  answered  shortly,  and  he 
raised  his  hand  to  make  another  sale. 

Then,  in  a  flash,  for  even  John  Bagsbury 
was  a  very  little  slower  than  he,  the  Bear  knew 
what  it  meant.  He  wheeled  suddenly  upon 
his  interrogator,  and  he  did  not  need  the 
glimpse  he  caught  of  the  point  of  a  star  be- 
neath the  coat  to  convince  him  that  he  had 
comprehended  aright.  He  spoke  directly  into 
the  man's  ear  and  so  rapidly  that  the  words 
blurred  together.  But  the  man  understood. 

"  Do  you  want  to  earn  a  thousand  dollars 
in  the  next  five  minutes  ?  Stand  where  you 


A  Corner  337 

are  and  don't  speak  to  me  or  interfere  with 
me  till  then.  That's  all  you'll  have  to  do." 

He  turned  back  toward  Keyes  and  started 
to  raise  his  arm,  but  again  the  detaining  hand 
came  down  upon  his  shoulder. 

"  Do  you  want  five  ? "  he  snapped. 

It  might  have  saved  him.  If  John  Bagsbury 
had  not  been  waiting  for  them  over  across  the 
hall,  it  would  in  all  probability  have  saved  him. 
The  detectives  had  known  John  less  than  half 
an  hour,  but  in  that  time  one  can  sometimes 
learn  something  of  a  man's  essential  charac- 
teristics. 

The  detective  turned  away  uneasily  and 
called  to  his  fellow,  "  Come  down  here,  Ryan." 

Until  that  moment  the  pit  had  been  a  scene 
of  tumult ;  in  other  words,  its  yelling,  frenzied, 
chaotic  self.  But  at  that  call  the  tempest  died 
away  into  a  mere  buzzing  curiosity.  The  men 
who  a  moment  before  had  been  oblivious  to 
all  save  the  price  of  lard,  were  now  wondering 
what  the  man  called  Ryan  was  going  to  do, 
and  they  stood  aside  to  make  way  for  him. 
They  would  only  have  had  to  crowd  a  bit 
close  and  perhaps  indulge  in  a  little  harmless 
rushing  to  give  Sppnley  the  three  or  four 


338  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

minutes  he  needed  to  win  his  fight,  but  no  one 
began  it.  Friends  and  enemies  simply  stood 
by  and  watched  Ryan  join  his  fellow  close 
beside  Sponley. 

"You'll  have  to  come  along  with  us,"  said 
the  one  who  had  first  accosted  him.  "  You're 
wanted  for  assault  and  battery." 

"  Assault  and  battery ! "  echoed  the  Bear, 
looking  at  the  two  men  in  genuine  surprise. 
"  You've  got  the  wrong  man." 

He  shook  himself  free  and  turned  again 
upon  Keyes,  but  in  a  second  the  detectives 
had  his  elbows  pinned  at  his  sides  and  were 
forcing  him  backward  toward  the  rim  of  the 
pit. 

"  Show  me  your  warrant." 

"  When  we  get  out  of  this  crowd,"  said 
Ryan. 

Sponley  made  no  further  attempt  to  resist. 
He  turned  and  walked  quietly  out  of  the  pit. 
"  Show  me  your  warrant,"  he  repeated. 

He  smiled  as  he  read  it,  a  dog's  smile  that 
bared  every  tooth  in  his  upper  jaw. 

"  Curtin,  by  God ! "  he  said  softly.  Then 
he  turned  briskly  to  the  detectives.  "  All  right, 
I'll  go  with  you ;  only  be  quick.  I'm  in  a 


A  Corner  339 

hurry."  But  he  stopped  involuntarily  as  the 
sudden  roar  that  went  up  from  the  pit  told 
him  that  trading  had  begun  again.  He  knew 
that  hurry  would  avail  him  nothing.  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  the  Bear  tasted  the  bitter- 
ness of  defeat. 

He  was  beaten ;  not,  after  all,  by  luck,  and 
only  secondarily  by  John  Bagsbury.  It  was 
Nemesis  that  had  overtaken  him ;  or,  to  phrase 
it  more  modernly,  the  reflex  action  of  the  very 
force  that  had  contributed  so  largely  to  his 
former  successes.  Had  it  been  the  other  way 
about,  they  might  have  arrested  Keyes  with- 
out materially  affecting  the  outcome  of  the 
struggle,  for  Keyes  was,  from  half-past  nine 
to  half-past  one,  simply  a  machine  for  buying 
or  for  selling,  as  the  case  might  be.  But 
Melville  Sponley  had  always  been  a  visible 
incarnation  of  success.  The  men  who  had 
faced  him  all  these  years  in  the  pit  knew  that 
he  had  never  been  beaten,  and  they  had  cher- 
ished the  superstition,  which  he  held  himself, 
that  he  could  not  be  beaten.  During  years  on 
the  Board  of  Trade  —  that  place  among  all 
others  where  nothing  should  count  but  hard 
sense  and  telegraphic  advices  —  no  rumor  had 


340  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

been  so  potent  in  bearing  down  the  market  as 
the  report  that  Sponley  was  selling  short. 

In  this  duel  he  fought  with  Pickering,  reason 
was  on  the  Bull  side ;  the  lard  market  was  really 
narrow.  Nearly  all  the  traders  who  dabbled  at 
all  in  provisions  had  sided  with  Sponley  simply 
because  he  was  Sponley.  The  small,  visible 
supply  of  lard  was  an  insignificant  fact  com- 
pared with  that.  So  when  the  Bear,  after  read- 
ing the  warrant,  walked  quietly  away  between 
the  two  detectives,  there  was  blank  dismay 
among  his  followers. 

Keyes  was  not  the  man  to  lose  a  golden 
moment  like  that  one.  He  thrust  his  hands 
high  in  the  air,  his  palms  toward  him,  and  every 
finger  extended.  His  voice,  as  he  shouted  the 
new  price,  rang  with  defiant  challenge  for  the 
men  who  had  been  giving  his  principal  so  ter- 
rible a  drubbing.  For  a  moment  they  made  a 
show  of  resistance,  and  then  their  opposition 
melted  away  like  a  child's  fort  of  sand  before 
the  first  rush  of  the  tide. 

When  the  news  came  downstairs  to  Pickering, 
he  was  sitting  on  the  table  in  Sievert's  private 
office.  He  said  nothing  to  the  head  clerk,  who 
congratulated  him.  He  simply  sat  there  open- 


A   Corner  341 

mouthed,  breathing  fast,  like  a  man  who  has 
just  made  a  hundred-yard  dash.  He  did  not 
even  wipe  away  the  perspiration  that  gathered 
on  his  forehead  and  ran  down  into  his  eyes. 
He  had  not  moved  when  John  Bagsbury  came 
into  the  room  a  few  minutes  later. 

"  Here  you  are,"  said  the  Banker.  "  Well,  I 
guess  this  lets  you  out.  It  was  cut  pretty  close, 
though." 

"It  was  cut  close,"  Pickering  answered.  "I 
hope  it  may  never  be  cut  so  damned  close  again. 
Are  you  going  to  wait,  too  ? " 

John  nodded.  There  was  no  need  of  their 
discussing  what  they  were  waiting  for,  and 
neither  man  spoke  again  until  it  happened, 
which  was  about  half  an  hour  later. 

Everybody  had  expected  it,  though  not  so 
soon ;  but  none  the  less  it  seemed  unreal, 
incredible,  when  from  the  gallery  the  secre- 
tary of  the  Board  of  Trade  read  the  formal 
announcement,  — 

"All  parties  having  accounts  with  Melville 
Sponley  are  instructed  to  close  out  the  same 
immediately." 

The  formula  is  as  familiar  as  the  alphabet, 
but  containing  that  name,  it  came  strangely, 


342  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

unpleasantly  to  the  older  men  on  the  floor. 
They  acted  upon  it,  however. 

In  Sievert's  office  again  it  was  John  who 
broke  the  silence.  "  That's  all,"  he  said,  when 
the  clerk  told  them.  "We  really  didn't  have 
him  till  now,  but  I  guess  this  settles  it." 

Pickering  slipped  down  from  the  table  and 
moved  toward  the  door.  "  Yes,  this  settles  it. 
I've  had  enough  for  to-day." 

He  paused  and  came  back  to  where  John 
was  standing.  "  I  haven't  thanked  you  yet, 
but  I  will  sometime.  You  pulled  me  out  of 
the  hole." 

"I  don't  need  to  be  thanked,"  said  John, 
brusquely.  "  I  was  going  on  my  own  hook 
this  morning.  It  was  my  innings." 

He  accompanied  Pickering  to  the  street, 
parted  from  him  with  a  nod,  and  walked 
slowly  back  to  the  bank.  He  felt  tired  now 
that  it  was  all  over,  but  he  was  glad  that  he 
had  a  day's  work  before  him.  He  did  not 
yet  fully  realize  that  the  man  he  had  fought 
so  furiously  was  Melville  Sponley,  his  friend, 
and  he  was  half  conscious  of  a  wish  to  put 
off  that  realization  for  a  while  longer.  Time 
would  readjust  things  on  some  sort  of  basis, 


A  Corner  343 

though  there  was  an  enemy  where  there  had 
seemed  to  be  a  friend  before.  Anyway,  the 
fight  was  over  and  well  over.  It  had  been  a 
good  fight.  With  that  reflection  the  Banker 
turned  into  his  office  and  attacked  the  pile  of 
letters  that  lay  on  his  desk;  but  even  this 
habitual  work  which  he  did  so  swiftly  and  so 
easily  could  not  prevent  the  sudden  recur- 
rence every  little  while  of  an  uneasy  feel- 
ing that  something  in  the  scheme  of  things 
was  fundamentally  wrong.  If  he  had  been 
any  one  but  John  Bagsbury,  he  would  have 
discovered  that  he  had  the  blues. 

Our  story  is  almost  done,  for  with  Pickering's 
subsequent  and  highly  succcessful  manipulation 
of  the  lard  market,  we  have  no  concern.  What 
was  once  the  great  fact  in  John  Bagsbury's  life, 
his  friendship  with  Melville  Sponley,  is  now 
nothing  but  a  memory,  and  the  test  to  show 
which  of  the  two  is  the  better  man,  the  test 
that  the  Bear  so  long  ago  foresaw,  is  fully  ac- 
complished. 

Yet  there  is  a  little  more  to  tell. 

From  very  early  that  Thursday  morning, 
before  any  one  at  the  Bagsburys'  house  was 
stirring,  Harriet  Sponley  had  lain  in  the  white 


344  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

bed  in  Dick's  little  white  room,  waiting.  The 
delirium,  which,  all  through  the  day  before,  had 
mercifully  protected  her,  had  gone  away  with 
the  fever,  and  she  remembered  everything  that 
had  happened  before  she  had  started  for  the 
Bagsburys'  on  Tuesday  evening  with  perfect 
distinctness.  But  the  interval  of  unconscious- 
ness gave  her  a  curious  feeling  of  detachment 
from  the  Harriet  she  remembered.  She  looked 
back  to  those  days  as  one  might  look  at  a  pic- 
ture :  the  excitement,  the  terror,  the  bitterness 
of  those  hours  after  she  had  learned  what 
were  her  husband's  plans,  she  saw  as  clearly  as 
possible ;  but  the  memory  brought  no  revival  of 
those  emotions  in  her  now.  They  had  belonged 
to  somebody  else.  She  would  begin  to  be  that 
somebody  again  by  and  by,  perhaps,  but  that 
did  not  matter  now.  So  she  lay  quietly,  some- 
times dozing,  sometimes  broad  awake,  waiting 
for  something.  She  did  not  try  to  guess  what 
it  would  be. 

The  room  pleased  her.  It  was  bright  and 
dainty,  there  was  no  unrestful  decoration  about 
it.  It  reminded  her  somehow  of  Dick.  She 
asked  for  Miss  Haselridge  a  number  of  times 
that  morning,  and  was  disappointed  each  time 


A   Corner  345 

that  they  said  she  had  not  yet  come  home. 
She  would  have  liked  to  have  Dick  about. 
When  Alice  Bagsbury  tiptoed  into  the  room,  she 
generally  pretended  to  be  asleep,  for  Alice's  well- 
meant  ministrations  and  inquiries  were  irritating. 

A  little  after  four  o'clock,  she  heard  a  step 
approaching  her  door,  along  the  hall.  It  was 
a  quiet  tread,  but  the  boards  of  the  old  floor 
creaked  under  it.  For  years  she  had  known 
it  better  than  any  other,  and  in  all  those  years 
it  had  never  been  unwelcome.  But  now  it 
brought  her  back  instantly  to  herself ;  she  was 
again  the  broken,  quivering  Harriet  she  had 
looked  at  so  impersonally  a  little  while  ago. 
With  a  sudden  impulse  of  fear  she  turned  her 
face  to  the  wall  and  closed  her  eyes.  She  knew 
now  what  she  had  been  waiting  for. 

The  door  opened  almost  silently ;  then  after  a 
moment's  pause  Melville  Sponley  walked  softly 
across  the  room  and  sat  down  upon  the  bed 
close  beside  her.  But  not  until  she  felt  his  hand 
upon  her  forehead  did  she  dare  open  her  eyes 
and  look  at  him. 

"  How  is  it  going  ? "  she  asked,  preventing 
the  question  that  was  on  his  lips.  "  I've  waited 
all  day  to  find  out." 


346  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  Pretty  well." 

"No,  tell  me  everything.  I'm  not  afraid  — 
of  that." 

"  I  don't  believe  you  are.  I  don't  believe 
you're  afraid  of  anything.  But  it  isn't  easy  to 
tell.  They've  beaten  us,  Harriet.  They  closed 
me  out  just  before  noon.  We're  broke." 

She  turned  quickly  away  and  buried  her  face 
in  the  pillow. 

"I  thought  I  should  never  have  to  tell  you 
anything  like  that,"  he  went  on,  speaking  slowly, 
for  the  words  came  hard.  "  I  didn't  think  any- 
body could  beat  me." 

He  paused  and  looked  at  her  anxiously ;  the 
effect  of  his  words  alarmed  him  a  little.  "  I 
know  I  ought  not  to  be  talking  to  you  about  it 
now,  but  —  " 

"  It  isn't  that,"  she  interrupted  quickly. 
"Please  don't  think  it's  that.  It's  something 
I've  got  to  tell  you  that  frightens  me." 

His  face  told  her  that  her  words  had  puzzled 
him,  but  he  only  waited  for  her  to  go  on.  For 
a  long  time  she  did  not  speak.  Courageous  as 
she  was,  she  could  hardly  force  the  words  to  her 
lips,  for  all  her  happiness  hung  on  the  way  he 
should  receive  them. 


A  Corner  347 

"  This  is  it,"  she  said  monotonously :  "  I  came 
here  that  night  to  tell  John  that  there  was  going 
to  be  a  run  on  his  bank.  So  you  see  it  was  I 
who  beat  you.  I  did  it  because  —  " 

"So  that  is  what  worried  you  !  "  he  exclaimed, 
catching  both  her  hands  in  his.  "  Why,  that 
didn't  beat  me.  I  knew  you'd  told  him ;  he  said 
so.  I've  been  proud  of  you  ever  since  for  that. 
It  didn't  occur  to  me  to  do  it  till  later ;  but  when 
it  did,  I  came  around  and  warned  him  myself. 
Then  he  said  you'd  already  told  him." 

The  tears  brimmed  from  her  eyes  and  mois- 
tened her  hot  cheeks.  "  Don't  tell  me  any  more. 
It  doesn't  matter.  I'm  happier  than  I  thought 
I  ever  could  be  again." 

"  So  you  were  frightened  because  —  " 

"  Don't,"  she  pleaded ;  "  let's  not  talk  about 
it  at  all.  Let's  agree  never  to  speak  at  all  about 
these  days.  It's  all  over,  and  this  was  the  last." 

"  Yes,"  he  said  slowly  ;  "  we  agreed  that  this 
was  to  be  the  last." 

She  gazed  into  his  face,  eagerly  at  first,  but 
soon  the  brightness  died  out  of  her  eyes ;  then 
she  looked  away,  out  through  the  dainty  white 
curtain  that  hung  before  the  window,  at  a  patch 
of  blue  sky. 


348  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  she  said,  with  a 
smile  on  her  lips.  "  Of  course  you  can't  stop 
after  a  defeat.  I'd  forgotten  that  it  was  a  defeat. 
But  you  want  to  win  again." 

"  That  makes  me  feel  better.  I  hoped  you'd 
feel  that  way  about  it.  I  know  I  can  win,  and 
I'd  like  to.  And  it'll  only  be  one  more." 

"  Only  one  more,"  she  echoed  softly.  Then 
she  roused  herself  and  said  energetically :  "  I 
wish  you'd  get  the  carriage  and  take  me  home. 
I'm  strong  enough  to  go,  really,  and  I  want  to 
get  back  there." 

Jack  Dorlin  has  always  accounted  it  a  miracle 
of  self-control  that  he  stayed  at  the  bank  that 
day  until  he  had  finished  up  his  day's  work. 
But  in  spite  of  Dick's  face,  with  its  lurking 
dimple,  that  kept  coming  between  him  and  his 
remittance  ledgers,  and  her  voice  that  was 
always  in  his  ears,  he  did  it.  It  will  go  without 
saying  that  when  the  last  of  the  work  was 
done,  a  little  before  five  in  the  afternoon,  that 
he  made  record-breaking  speed  straight  to  John 
Bagsbury's  house.  When  he  came  near  it,  he 
was  struck  with  a  sudden  incredulity  concerning 
the  astounding  events  of  that  morning.  It  was 


A  Corner  349 

absurd  to  think  that  they  had  really  happened. 
With  true  lover's  insanity  he  took  council  with 
himself  that  he  would  assume  nothing  at  all  un- 
less Dick's  behavior  should  give  him  the  warrant. 

But  when  he  came  up  the  steps,  and  she 
opened  the  door  for  him  — 

There  is  nothing  at  all  original  about  it, 
though  they  would  dispute  that  statement  vigor- 
ously, nothing  that  does  not  happen  too  many 
times  to  be  worth  telling,  nothing  that  some 
persons  do  not  know  already,  and  others  could 
not  understand  if  it  were  told,  about  what  they 
said  and  what  they  left  unsaid  as  they  lingered 
in  that  dark  old  hall. 

But  when  he  started  to  open  the  door  into  the 
library,  she  checked  him,  saying  in  a  whisper 
that  John  was  there. 

"Well,"  said  this  lion-hearted  lover,  "let's  go 
in  and  tell  him." 

She  protested  for  a  little,  but  finally  yielded, 
and  together  they  entered  the  library.  They 
thought  that  after  what  he  had  seen  that  morn- 
ing, he  would  understand,  and  certainly  their 
faces  as  John  looked  at  them  should  have  told 
the  story  to  any  average  intelligence.  But  John 
had  once  before  narrowly  escaped  a  disastrous 


3  SO  The  Banker  and  the  Bear 

blunder  through  too  confidently  judging  from 
appearances,  and  experience  had  made  him 
cautious. 

So  he  did  nothing  to  meet  them  halfway,  and 
Jack,  whose  valor  seemed  to  have  remained  out 
in  the  dark  hall,  had  to  stammer  out  the  news  a 
word  at  a  time  until  the  last. 

When  John  fairly  understood,  his  confusion 
exceeded  that  of  Jack  Dorlin.  He  glanced 
furtively  at  the  hall  door  as  though  meditating 
flight.  When  he  saw,  however,  that  nothing 
happened,  — he  never  could  be  induced  to  tell 
what  he  had  expected  that  they  would  do,  — 
he  sat  down  again.  But  as  soon  as  possible  he 
changed  the  subject  of  conversation,  evidently 
still  regarding  it  as  dangerous. 

"We've  had  quite  a  day  of  it,"  he  said,  and 
they  both  assented  cordially. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  a  literary  fellow  like 
you,  Dorlin,  might  write  up  that  time-lock  busi- 
ness into  a  pretty  good  story." 

Jack  said  yes  again,  but  this  time  more 
vaguely.  "  Of  course,"  the  Banker  hastened  to 
add,  "you'd  have  to  fix  it  up  a  little.  You 
could  have  them  blow  the  vault  open  with 
dynamite  and  kill  the  villain." 


A  Corner  351 

Dick's  hand  stole  into  a  larger  one  that  had 
hidden  itself  under  the  fold  of  her  skirt. 
"  Come  and  play  for  me,  Jack,  until  dinner- 
time," she  said;  then  turning  to  the  Banker, 
she  added,  "  Don't  you  feel  like  some  music, 
too?" 

But  he  understood.  "No  —  no — run  along," 
he  said,  and  laughing  they  slipped  away  and 
left  him  alone  in  the  library. 


AT  YOU-ALL'S   HOUSE 

By  JAMES  NEWTON  BASKETT 
Introduction  by  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie 

Cloth.      i2mo.      $1.50 


"  The  book  is  an  idyl  of  the  fields  and  a  study  of  human 
character  as  well,  ...  a  nature  study  whose  completeness  and  in- 
sight show  that  the  author  possesses  the  soul  of  the  true  artist."  — 
The  Daily  Eagle,  Brooklyn. 

"The  tale  is  restful,  ...  a  simple  story  told  admirably.  .  .  . 
Insensibly  in  reading  this  charming  tale  one  falls  into  the  mood  of 
the  out-of-doors,  and  the  story  comes  out  of  the  rush  of  events  as 
gratefully  as  a  cool  breeze  into  an  overheated  room."  —  The  Courier, 
Buffalo. 

"Through  the  book  there  runs  a  delightful  vein  of  natural  ob- 
servation and  sentiment ;  indeed,  the  story  is  a  romance  of  nature 
quite  as  much  as  of  life.  .  .  .  This  introduction  of  nature  gives  the 
story  color,  delicacy,  refinement,  and  variety."  —  The  Outlook, 


AS  THE   LIGHT  LED 

By  JAMES  NEWTON  BASKETT 

Author  of  "At  You-Atts  House." 

Cloth.     i2mo.     $1.50 


The  scene  of  the  story,  like  that  of  his  first  novel,  is  laid  in 
Northern  Missouri.  It  is  a  country  love  story  of  the  late  "  sixties  " 
when  the  political  issues  of  that  part  of  Missouri  were  deeply 
swayed  by  the  disputes  of  the  Immersionists  and  the  Paedobaptists. 
Around  one  of  these  disputes  Mr.  Baskett  has  written  the  thread  of 
his  story,  which  presents  a  striking  picture  of  the  features  and  customs 
of  the  rural  Mississippi  Valley. 

"  James  Newton  Baskett  is  a  writer  of  no  small  promise.  .  .  . 
He  has  insight,  sympathy,  profound  and  affectionate  acquaintance 
with  nature,  and  a  strong  grip  upon  the  vital  elements  of  human 
nature." —  The  Times,  New  York. 


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BOY  LIFE  ON  THE  PRAIRIE 

By  HAMLIN  GARLAND 
Cloth.  1 2  mo.  $1.50 


Illustrated  by  E.  W.  DEMING 

"  The  breath  of  the  western  prairie  blows  refreshingly  through  Hamlin 
Garland's  new  story.  It  tells  of  the  life  of  a  boy  on  the  farm  from  seed- 
time to  harvest,  of  his  work  and  his  play,  his  school,  of  the  county  fair,  of 
herding  cattle,  Fourth  of  July  celebrations,  of  circuses  and  hired  men."  — 
Advance. 

"  Written  with  the  accuracy  of  knowledge  and  the  insight  of  affection 
which  come  only  with  first-hand  acquaintance.  No  one  has  better  described 
life  on  a  great  farm  ...  it  brings  very  graphically  before  the  reader  the 
movement  of  a  life  distinctly  American  and  now  fast  receding  into  the  past." 
—  Outlook. 


NEW  AND  UNIFORM  EDITION  OF  THE  EARLIER 
WORKS  OF  HAMLIN  GARLAND 

MAIN  TRAVELLED  ROADS 

A  New  Edition,  with  Additional  Stories.  I2mo.  Cloth.  $1.50 
"  A  wonderfully  impressive  and  instructive  book.  Not  merely  from  a 
literary  point  of  view  is  it  most  praiseworthy,  but  certainly  the  East  is 
in  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr.  Garland  for  the  enlightenment  he  gives  upon 
the  condition  of  things  in  the  West." — Boston  Courier. 

PRAIRIE  FOLKS 

A  New  Edition  Revised  and  Enlarged.    I2mo.    Cloth.     $1.50 
"  A  volume  of  short  stories  of  life  on  the  prairie  lands  of  the  middle 
West  .  .  .  well  worth  reading  and  possessing."  —  Buffalo  Express. 

ROSE  OF  DUTCHER'S  COOLLY 

I2I710.    Cloth.    $1.50 

"  A  strong  and  original  book,  a  book  which  goes  far  toward  being 
ranked  among  the  very  best  American  novels." 

—  The  Evening  Telegraph,  Philadelphia. 

THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  GOLD  SEEKERS 

A  record  of  travel  in  prose  and  verse.    Cloth.    $1.50 
"A  work  of  real  and  vivid  power." —  The  Dial. 


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*  i 


